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Mr Khetarpal, who has been studying hotel management at TAFE in Hobart for the past 18 months, was celebrating a friend’s birthday on Saturday night.

He went to the friend’s place for drinks at 8pm and later went to the Observatory.

Mr Khetarpal, of Sandy Bay, stopped drinking just after midnight and said by 4am he felt sober and ready to go home.

He left the nightclub with a friend about 4.30 and they headed towards the taxi rank outside Isobar when the group began to taunt them with racial comments.

The ringleader took off his shirt and then headbutted Mr Khetarpal and hit him repeatedly while another group member held his arms behind his back so he couldn’t defend himself.

Other members of the group continued to yell racial taunts during the attack, which Mr Khetarpal said lasted for a few minutes.

“They were saying f… off, you don’t belong here, you’re not a real Australian, go home,” Mr Khetarpal said.

“They said ‘go look at yourself in the mirror and you will see the difference’.”

Mr Khetarpal’s friend waved down a passing police car but by then the offenders had fled.

Mr Khetarpal had a bloodied nose and lips and his face was so swollen he could barely speak.

He was treated at the Royal Hobart Hospital’s emergency department yesterday and doctors said he was fortunate his jaw was not broken in the attack.

Mr Khetarpal, who is president of the Indian Youth Society in Hobart, said racist attacks like this were not uncommon.

He said he knew of at least three other people who had been bashed in recent months, including one attack in Franklin Square.

“We hear racial comments most times that we go out on Friday or Saturday nights,” Mr Khetarpal said.

“I’ve been to most places in Australia and I chose to study in Tasmania because it’s peaceful, there are no distractions and I thought there was no racism.

“I like being here and generally I am well accepted, but a few people make it really hard at times.”

He said he and his friends tried to ignore the comments, but it was still frustrating and he wanted people to be more accepting.

“I was with a Chinese friend the other day and someone made racial comments to him,” Mr Khetarpal said.

“I believe in multiculturalism and I think everyone should be able to get along.”

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The Supreme Court in Hobart heard Scorse and her co-accused had confronted the student in the Elizabeth bus mall around 7.30pm on November 4.

Scorse shouted to the boy “if you don ’t give me your phone I will stab you”.

As the boy tried to get her hands off his throat she stabbed him in the upper arm with the 20cm weapon.

Surveillance cameras showed Scorse and her accomplice pursued the student, who fled to the Liverpool St police station.

The attackers stayed outside but Scorse furiously kicked the front window in.

Police later arrested Scorse but she was too drunk to interview until the following day.

She then told police she was drunk and “just being mean” and that it was “disgusting” a 15-year-old had been robbed.

The court heard she did not show any remorse and told police she was trying to cause serious injury but she was not trying to kill him.

The boy said, in a victim impact statement, that he found it frightening at the time and was wary about walking through town.

The court heard Scorse had been seeing an alcohol counsellor since she had been in custody.

Scorse interrupted the court after she was sent back behind bars to ask Justice Pierre Slicer whether she coald “go and cuddle my mum”.

He bailed her for 15 minutes so she could sit at the back of the court, where she cried loudly in her mother ’s arms.

During the court proceedings she kept looking at her mother and mouthed the words “I’m sorry Mum” as she wiped away tears.

She was remanded in custody to reappear on Friday for sentencing. She had pleaded guilty to once count of attempted aggravated armed robbery and one count of destroy property.

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On Thursday afternoon the three young women were yelled at by a man on a bus from Hobart to Moonali, and yesterday they were shoved in Liverpool St by two women and a man.

English language students Grace Wong, 15, Yolanda Zhang, 17, and Crystal Lin, 18, were scared by the abuse and physical intimidation.

“We were just walking down the street when they bumped into us, and then yelled at us,” Ms Wong said.

“They swore at us loudly and called us names.

“I don’t understand why they were angry with us. We didn’t do anything wrong.” Tasmanian College of English teacher Rachel Wasilejko was walking behind the three girls when the incident in Liverpool St occurred.

“I was shocked and disgusted,” Ms Wasllejko said.

“They shoved past the girls and then yelled at them to go back to their own f……g country.

“It was unprovoked, in broad daylight, in the middle of the CBD in Liverpool St. I can’t remember ever seeing anything like it in Hobart.” Fellow English teacher Karen Welcirick said it was not the first time Tasmanian College of English students had been victimised.

“A few months ago a car drove past a group of young Asian men in the street and threw a beer bottle at them,” Ms Welcirick said.

“They yelled racial abuse at them as well and the police had to be called.” Inspector Craig Waterhouse, of the State Community Policing Services, said cases of racial abuse were rare in Tasmania.

“It is not a big issue but of course these things do happen from time to time and, when they do, we address them accordingly,” Insp Waterhouse said.

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“Then all of them came at me, bashing me,” she said. “I was on the ground fighting the two sisters.” Miss Ochio’s boss John Burrell said the assault had been cowardly and people had to realise what African refugees had seen and endured.

“They have seen genocide, rape, murder, beheadings,” he said.

“What a gutless act to bash a person in a group, steal her belongings, leaving her faice down in the street” Rebels killed Miss Ochio ’s parents when she was two and she spent the next 13 years on the run with her siblings.

As Tasmanian children were going to school, she was witnessing rapes, murders, even beheadings in the country where civil war has killed more than 2 million people.

Five years ago, the then 15-year-old moved to Kingston with her family to start a life of peace.

“I felt safe as soon as I got off the plane,” she said.

“I knew that the rebels could not get me here.” Yesterday, Miss Ochio said she was now scared to go out alone at night and felt nervous when around large groups of young people.

“I get really scared and think they will do the same thing so I walk away,” she said.

But she said Tasmania was still a safe place and there were “a lot of lovely people”.

“But some people need to change,” Miss Ochio said.

“We are all the same people, just the colour is different, we have the same blood.

“We just have to learn to co-operate with each other.” She said she was used to being called names but never believed she would be bashed.

“Old people, young people, they call me names,” Miss Ochio said.

“If they are drunk I don’t really mind.

“But when they are sober it does upset me because they know what they are saying.”

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