An Australian teenager was on Thursday jailed for 13 years by a court here for murdering Indian student Nitin Garg,a heinous crime that followed a slew of racist attacks on community members and sparked a diplomatic row with New Delhi. The boy,whose identity was withheld as he is a minor,had pleaded guilty in April to one count of murder and one count of attempted armed robbery in the killing of 21-year-old Garg on January 2,2010. Garg,who had migrated from Punjab,was stabbed in the abdomen in Cruickshank Park here while he was on his way to his part-time job at a nearby restaurant. He managed to stagger to his workplace before succumbing to his wounds in hospital. Justice Paul Coghlan of the Victoria state Supreme Court sentenced the teenager to 13 years in jail,with a non-parole period of eight years. Coghlan said the killing was awful and tragic. He,however,said it was a crime of opportunity rather than race.
