THE international fallout from the murder of Nitin Garg has spread well beyond India, with media outlets in Asia, the Middle East, North America and Europe reporting the trouble in Australia.

The bad press, which until now has largely been confined to India, has raised fears that the damage to Australia's $17 billion international education industry could spread to other countries.

In China, the birthplace of almost a quarter of Australia's international students, the major state-run television network yesterday reported the factually incorrect claim that police had confirmed that the murder of Indian national Ranjodh Singh, whose partially burnt body was found beside a country road in south-west NSW on December 29, was "racially motivated".

The official Chinese newsagency, Xinhua, this week reported that the stabbing murder of Mr Garg, as he made his way to work at a fast-food outlet in Melbourne's west on Saturday night, had taken place "in the wake of a wave of attacks upon Indian students in Australia last year".

In an editorial, Gulf News, of the United Arab Emirates, said "motive based on hatred" was "the common trend" in a number of attacks in urban Australia recently.

"This trend is simply unacceptable," the paper said. "Law enforcement authorities and judicial officials at state and federal level in Australia must take every possible measure to ensure these hate crimes are prosecuted to the fullest extent possible. There can be no velvet glove treatment for those who commit heinous crimes."

The Financial Times, The Telegraph, The Irish Times, the Voice of America and The New Zealand Herald were among publications that also produced their own reports on the situation.

The Malaysian Sun published its report under the headline: "Australian Government unable to stop crime against Indians."

As politicians and officials continued to defend Australia as a safe place to study, Australia's high commissioner to India, Peter Varghese, told journalists in New Delhi race may have been a motive for some recent attacks on Indian nationals, particularly where the attackers engaged in racial abuse. But he told a press conference most assaults on Indian students were "opportunistic urban crime".