An Australian politician of Indian descent has criticised the Queensland Police for making a “blanket statement” about the killing of Punjabi driver Manmeet Alisher being a “random act”. Alexandra Kaur Bhathal of the Australian Greens Party, who contested the 2016 federal election, said while addressing a gathering of Indian community in Melbourne that the police had announced that the attack wasn’t racial even before the case was brought before a court.She questioned why the police had to make the statement when the investigation had just begun. “We have a police spokesperson very shortly after the incident occurred coming out and making a blanket statement that there is no racial element involved in this attack. So what really I am questioning is why did that spokesperson feel the need to come out and say that so quickly. And I am also questioning the validity of a statement like that,” said Bhathal.Soon after the crime, Queensland police had said there was no evidence to suggest it was a racial attack.Claiming that this was not an isolated incident, Bhathal said: “We are all part of a society in which there are often attacks on people and some of these attacks are racially motivated. We know that from the research.”She said that if the perpetrator had been an Indian, there would have been no statement that it was a random attack. “We know that it would have been tagged into a broader context of terrorism regardless of the facts,” she told the gathering on Tuesday. “There is a systemic discrimination built into our justice system in Australia . I think the very high rate of incarceration of aboriginal men, in particular, is an indication. That’s a very clear evidence of that,” she said.“I can’t say (if the attack on Manmeet Alisher was racially motivated). And that’s exactly my point that no one will know.”A spokesperson for the Queensland Police department said the police officers in their media conferences had stated that “there was no evidence of a racial motivation to the attack”.The spokesperson declined a further comment citing the matter was before the courts.Manmeet was attacked with an ‘incendiary device’ on Friday morning in Brisbane. He died as a result of the burns. His last rites will be performed at his ancestral village, Alisher in Sangrur district on Friday morning.