Melbourne: Machete attack on Indian-origin man; surgeons reattach hand

An Indian-origin man in Melbourne, Australia, suffered life-threatening injuries after a group of teenagers attacked him with a machete outside a shopping centre in the city.

One of his hands was nearly severed but was reattached by surgeons later. Four of the accused were arrested later but two were released on bail.

According to Australian media reports, 33-year-old Saurabh Anand was returning home from a pharmacy at Central Square Shopping Centre in Altona Meadows around 7.30 pm on July 19 when five teenagers targeted him.

Speaking with The Age, Melbourne, from his hospital bed, Anand said he was talking with a friend on the phone when he noticed that he was surrounded by the youngsters in a flash.

Also read: Indian student brutally assaulted, racially abused in Australia

“I didn’t hear a sound,” he was quoted as saying.

Describing the horror, Anand said one of the boys searched his pockets hastily while another hit him in the head repeatedly until he fell. A third took out a machete and held it to this throat.

He said that the assailants did not stop there. As he tried to shield his face and wrist, he was injured with the weapon.

“My instinctive reaction was to bring my arm up to protect my face and wrist. While I was trying to protect myself, the machete just went through my wrist. The second attack went through my hand. The third went through the bone,” he was quoted as saying by The Age.

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Anand was also stabbed in his shoulder and back and had a fractured spine, broken hand and injured head.

'Hand hanging by a thread'

“All I remember is the pain and my hand was … hanging by a thread,” he added.

Left grievously injured, Anand cried out for help and some passers-by came rushed to his aid. He was taken to the Royal Melbourne Hospital where the doctors initially thought his left hand had to be amputated. But Anand proved to be lucky as a prolonged emergency surgery saw his hand survive with surgeons reattaching it.

“The doctors say my injuries are so severe that they’re unsure how this is going to go,” Anand told publication.

“I cannot move my hand … All I feel in it is pain.”

Four teenage boys were arrested in connection with the incident while the police were still searching for the fifth. They are aged between 14 and 15 years.

Also read: Head, hands cut off, legs bent: Autopsy reveals shocking details of Meerut savagery

Two of the accused were released on bail later which left Anand disappointed. He told The Age that he was seeking justice and did not want anybody else to undergo the same experience. Anand also said that he was too afraid to return home and his partner was sleeping by his bedside in hospital.

Growing knife crimes

The attack on Anand comes amid an increase in knife-related crime and youth violence in Victoria. The police have been making a record 208 arrests a day and seizing edged weapons in huge quantities, said newspaper reports citing statistics.

The Victorian government has come up with tough new bail laws for repeat offenders to tackle a rise in machete-related attacks and gang violence involving the youth. It is also set to implement a full ban on possession of machetes from September 1.

Last week, an Indian man was allegedly brutally attacked and racially abused by a group of unidentified men during dispute over parking vehicle in Adelaide in South Australia.