18.8.2008
By Walter Jayawardhana
A
17 year old party lover and a Tamil gang member of one
of a Sri Lankan Tamil groups , was stabbed to death by
a taxi passenger, who passed racial slurs at him , police
reports said.
"A
17-year-old party lover was stabbed to death by a taxi
passenger who in a racist tirade called him a 'f******
Indian'," a report said.
Nilanthan
became the 50th young person to be murdered on London's
streets since the start of 2007 after he was stabbed in
the neck, police said.
Nilanthan
Moorthy and some of his friends were gathered outside
a party when a man in the back of a minicab, who was having
an exchange of words with the driver, turned his attention
on the group.
The
white man in his 30s started shouting 'You f****** Indians,
you f****** P***s' before being driven away, his friends
claimed August 17.
But
he came back and stabbed Nilanthan in the neck at 1am
in Croydon, South London, The Sun reported.
Nilanthan
later died in hospital at 4.30am on Sunday morning.
The
sister of the murdered teenager broke down in tears as
she paid tribute to her brother at the family's home yesterday.
Words cannot describe what his mum and dad are going through.
They just can't cope.
His
sister Santhiya, 18, learned of his death while in India,
where she and her mother were visiting their critically
ill grandmother.
She
flew back yesterday to the family home in New Addington,
near Croydon, south London, where she told reporters:
'He was my one and only brother and God has just taken
him.'
His
cousin, Vinisha Manivasaghan, 24, said: 'Words cannot
describe what his mum and dad are going through. They
just can't cope.'
The
17-year-old, who had friends in the ‘Croydon Boys’
street gang, was attacked at about 1 A.M. on Saturday.
He was with friends in Croydon when a man got out a taxi
and got involved in a fight with them, fatally knifing
Nilanthan.
Local
shop owner Ruban Mani, 26, was quoted having told a local
newspaper that 'His group was always hanging around here
and causing trouble. They must have upset someone who
lost their temper.
'Moorthy
was all right, but his friends were bad boys. The people
he was friends with wasted his life for no reason.'
The
murder of the Sri Lankan Tamil, who was studying economics
at Bromley College, has caused community leaders to appeal
for calm.
Courtesy - Asian
Tribune