ANOTHER Hobart taxi driver has been bashed in what he says is a racially motivated assault.
Cabbie Pardeep Singh was beaten unconscious by two passengers including a woman, in the Sandy Bay McDonald’s drive-through on Saturday night.
Singh said he was attacked when he asked his passenger to step outside the cab because she was going to vomit, The Mercury reported.
Mr Singh alleges the passenger told him in an expletive-filled rant that she wouldn’t pay the fare or cleaning fee.
“They punched me too many times and kicked me,” Mr Singh said. “[They said] ‘You f…..g Indians deserve this’.”
The cabbie was admitted overnight to the Royal Hobart Hospital.
Inspector Ian Whish-Wilson said a man and a woman have been charged in relation to the assault on Mr Singh.
“It is alleged that the driver asked the passengers to leave his taxi after one of them was sick,’’ Insp Whish-Wilson said.
“There was a dispute over payment and it is alleged the passengers assaulted the driver and damaged the vehicle.
“The driver received bruising to his face and it is believed he was unconscious for a short period.
“It was alleged a racial comment was made during the assault but it does not appear that the incident was racially motivated.”
A 21-year-old Sandy Bay woman and a 25-year-old Kingston man have been charged with assault and injure property and will appear in the Hobart Magistrates Court on June 26.
Mr Whish-Wilson said charges have also been laid in relation to the March assault on Mr Joy but no “special investigative unit” has been established.
Meanwhile Mr Singh, 25, who is studying hospitality, says he will not drive taxis again “because it’s so dangerous”.
A spokesman for 13 CABS, the company who employed Mr Singh, said: “Unfortunately it is a fact of life – it’s not acceptable but it is across the industry.”
Mr Joy has called for police to come down heavier on taxi thugs who need jail sentences not “a slap on the wrist”.
“People in India ask me why do I stay here,” he said.
“I stay because 95 per cent of people are good.”
This is the third attack on Indian taxi drivers in Australia in less than a year. In March this year, Indian taxi driver Li Max Joy was assaulted in Tasmania while another driver was thrashed by four men in June last year.