Sydney police pursuing Indian woman's murder 'very seriously', says MEA

The Ministry of External Affairs on Monday assured that Sydney Police is pursuing all possible leads in the murder case of an Indian woman IT consultant very seriously, and also cautioned against labelling the attack as racist.

"This is a sad event that happened on Saturday evening. Since then, our Consulate General in Sydney was informed of it the next day by the employers, Mindtree, which is an Indian company... The police have indicated that they take this matter very seriously and they are putting in a special group of detectives to pursue this matter and they hope that they will have something to share with us as soon as possible," MEA spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin told the media in New Delhi.

"At this stage, I don't think we should impute any motives. The police are on their job. Let us wait for their outcome. All we can say is that we are in touch with the Australian authorities in New South Wales and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj is herself monitoring the situation from here in Delhi," he added.

Akbaruddin also informed the media that the Indian Consulate General in Sydney has requested New South Wales Premier Michael Baird to pursue the matter.

"The Indian Consulate General has been proactively engaged with the Australian government he spoke to New South Wales Premier Michael Baird and requested him to pursue this matter with utmost importance. I understand that the husband, Arun Kumar, is now in Sydney. Our consulate general, Kumar and representatives of Mindtree have also been to the police station," he said.

On Saturday night, Prabha Arun Kumar, a 41-year-old IT consultant, was stabbed to death near her house in Sydney.