The Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, has said the attack on a Melbourne bank should not be used as a “political weapon” in the debate about Australia’s refugee policy.

A 21-year-old man is under police guard in hospital after allegedly dousing himself in petrol and setting himself alight at a Springvale branch of the Commonwealth Bank on Friday, starting a fire that injured 26 other people.

Six people were seriously burned and two remain in a critical condition.

Andrews said the incident should not be linked to terrorism, describing it as an isolated tragedy.

“I would urge everybody to look at this as an isolated act, because that is exactly what it is,” he told reporters on Sunday.

“It is not a commentary, and it oughtn’t to be used as a political weapon by anybody who finds fault with any of the policy settings we have at the moment.

“This is tragedy, nothing more, nothing less.”

The incident was one of the rallying cries for far right group United Patriots Front at a small protest in Melbourne on Sunday. The group also accused the media of downplaying the man’s refugee status.

Nur Islam is a Rohingya man who arrived in Australia as an unaccompanied minor in 2013, Fairfax Media has reported.

He spent time in immigration detention on Christmas Island and Weipa before settling in Melbourne.

He had recently moved into a share house with other asylums seekers from Myanmar.

Who are the Rohingya? The Myanmar government does not recognise the roughly 1.1 million Muslim Rohingya as citizens, creating a stateless people.



In 2012, deadly clashes with Buddhists in the western state of Rakhine caused 140,000 Rohingya to flee their homes. Many have since paid people smugglers to take them on dangerous sea voyages to Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia where they are often exploited.



Extremist nationalist movements insist the group are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, although the Rohingya say they are native to Rakhine state.



Rights groups accuse Myanmar authorities of ethnic cleansing, systematically forcing Rohingya from the country through violence and persecution, a charge the government has denied.

He was reportedly mentally ill and had become increasingly distressed about money, which he wanted to send to his sister in Myanmar to cover her hospital bills, and believed his Centrelink payments had been cut off, one of his flatmates told Fairfax Media.

“He said, ‘Why the government give money to me and the bank not give me,” flatmate Joseph Joseph said.

Islam had reportedly been acting strangely in recent weeks, walking alone late at night and seeing ghosts.

He had been invited to apply for a temporary protection visa but reportedly had not done so because he was frustrated by frequent changes in government policy. He had poor English skills and relied on $430 a fortnight in Centrelink payments, which he believed were not being paid.

The stress had taken a toll on his mental health, Australian Burmese Rohingya Organisation president Habib Habib told the Herald Sun.

Rohingya muslims are a minority in Myanmar and face persecution from the Buddhist authorities, forcing tens of thousands of Rhoingya to be confined to camps.

Junior Dean, who has been commended by emergency services for rescuing people from the burning bank and also holding the 21-year-old man until police arrived, told Fairfax Media the man told him he was frustrated with the bank.

The Department of Human Services said claims the man’s Centrelink payments had been cut off or delayed were “incorrect and speculative.”

Suspect in bank arson attack had not had payments stopped despite his belief he had and multiple bank visits @Centrelink statement Sat 11pm pic.twitter.com/eJP3ZfMa3k — Samantha Maiden (@samanthamaiden) November 20, 2016

Police are yet to interview Islam, who is in a critical but stable condition at the Alfred hospital.