02.04.09
Indian battles for life after ‘racist’ attack in Rome
PTI | London
An unemployed Indian youth from Punjab is battling for his life in a hospital in Rome after three youngsters beat him up with a bottle and set him on fire in an apparent “racist attack”.
35-year-old Navtej Singh Sidhu, a construction worker from Moga who has been in Italy for the last five years, but jobless for the last 4 months was sleeping in the Nettuno railway station, 65-km south of Rome when he was brutally attacked on Sunday morning.
Sushmit Biswas, First Secretary in the Indian Embassy in Rome who was the first to visit Sidhu, told PTI over phone the victim had sustained 40 per cent third degree burns, besides a skull fracture.
According to Dr Verardi, the therapist attending him at Saint Eugenio Hospital, Rome, Sidhu’s condition is still critical.
“He will be under observation for the next 72 hours,” the doctor said.