Police probe race motive for murder of Indian boy, three, in Australia

Police are investigating the murder of a three-year-old boy who was visiting Australia with his parents.

Gurshan Singh disappeared from the house where his family were staying in Melbourne yesterday afternoon.

Six hours later his body was found by a council worker 19 miles away by the side of a road. The toddler, from the Punjab in northern India, was visiting the country with his parents Harpreet Kaur and Harjit Singh.

His death follows the murder of an Indian student in a burger bar in January and protests about racially motivated attacks on Indian nationals but Australian officials have warned against jumping to conclusions about a potential motive for the attack.

Victoria police deputy commissioner Ken Jones said it was potentially harmful to speculate on why Gurshan was killed. He said: "The message to all communities is we stand ready to take on these sorts of investigations. Any suspicious death of a child we will investigate to the absolute of our potential.

"Beyond that I would say to the Indian community and to India, anything and everything that can be done will be done."

The boy, whose mother was studying in Australia, had been in the country for about six weeks.

Foreign minister Stephen Smith has been trying to improve relations with India, a major export market, after a series of race attacks.