 "Santosh Yadav, an Indian-origin senior data scientist was brutally assaulted in Ireland by a group of teenagers in what appears to be another racist attack. Image Courtesy: LinkedIn")
On July 19, a 40-year-old Indian man was brutally assaulted in Ireland’s Dublin suburb of Tallaght.
Almost a week after this horrific assault, another Indian has been beaten by a group of teenagers in Dublin, prompting many to ask — are Irish gangs targeting Indians?
We explore the latest incidents of violence against Indians in Ireland to try and ascertain if there’s a pattern to the attacks.
Indian left with a fractured cheek
Two days ago, an Indian-origin techie, identified as Santosh Yadav, described a horrific incident in which he was attacked and left with a fractured cheek.
Yadav is a senior data scientist at WiSAR Lab and Technology Gateway in the Irish city of Letterkenny. He is also a co-founder of a tech company known as CogniX. According to his LinkedIn profile, he completed his education — BTech from Kanpur University and PhD in Artificial Intelligence & Computer vision from the Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research, Ghaziabad — and then moved to Dublin for a job.
He said that he “suffered a brutal, unprovoked racist attack near my apartment in Dublin”. Narrating his ordeal, he said: “After having dinner, I was walking near my apartment when a group of six teenagers attacked me from behind. They snatched my glasses, breaking them, and then beat me relentlessly across my head, face, neck, chest, hands, and legs — leaving me bleeding on the pavement.”
Yadav states that he somehow was able to call the Irish police, the Gardai, for help, who took him to Blanchardstown Hospital where doctors confirmed that he had suffered a fracture to his cheekbone.
He further noted in his LinkedIn post that the attack against him wasn’t a one-off. “Racist attacks on Indian men and other minorities are surging across Dublin — on buses, in housing estates, and on public streets. They run free and are emboldened to attack again.”
He called on the Irish government to take action, stating that he and countless other Indians deserved to “to walk on the streets without fear”.
Past instances of Indians being attacked
As Yadav mentioned, his isn’t a lone incident where Irish gangs made up of teenagers have attacked Indians.
The other most recent assault took place on July 19 when a 40-year-old man was attacked in the evening by a gang of teens and left on the side of the pavement bloodied and battered until a woman came to his rescue and called the authorities for help.
The man in his 40s came to Ireland three weeks before the assault on a critical skills visa to begin a new job with a leading international tech company. According to his friend, the victim was on foot to the Vinayaka Hindu temple in Kingswood, following a Google Maps route. While walking through Kilnamanagh, he was approached by a group of teenagers who started taunting him and asking why he was in Ireland.
“He tried explaining he’d been hired by a tech company to fill a skills gap here in Ireland. And then they hit him badly on the head. For 10 to 12 seconds he didn’t know where he was and then he realised blood was oozing from his forehead,” the friend told The Irish Times.
The group stripped the man from the waist down and took his trousers, before dispersing and leaving him to wander in a dazed state through the residential area.
A fellow resident of Dublin, Jennifer Murray, came to the Indian’s rescue, calling the authorities and getting him the help he needed. In a video, she later broke down, revealing: “I saw this man standing there, completely soaked in blood, from his head all the way down to his toes.
“At that moment, he was pleading, ‘please help me, please save me’.”
Soon after he was attacked, videos of the bloodied man were quickly shared online, alongside claims he had been acting inappropriately around children before the attack. These claims were amplified by prominent anti-immigration accounts, including that of David Atherton, a journalist with a conservative website.
“In Tallaght, a suburb of Dublin, a migrant was caught exposing himself to children. He is covered in blood after being taught some manners,” Atherton falsely claimed in a post to his 300,000 followers on X, accompanied by a video of the man.
However, Murray and the Gardai dismissed this claim with Murray even adding, “He was so extremely polite to me the whole time, all he could say was thank you, thank you … he was visibly shocked, completely shocked.”
Shockingly, on the same day that the 40-year-old was attacked, another Indian was also been thrashed and left with a broken nose. The victim, who is studying for a master’s degree at Dublin Business School, was walking through Sean Walsh Park in Tallaght at 6 pm when, he said, he was approached by a group of teenagers.
According to the student’s landlord, they then swore at him and punched him in the face and all over his body.
Other Indian IT workers, doctors and nurses have also shared experiences of similar attacks in community WhatsApp groups. For instance, Indian-origin nurse Jiby Palatty had to call the police in May after two teenage boys on an e-scooter threw a glass bottle that shattered on her leg. Speaking to the Irish Times, she said the injury was a “surface wound, nothing major” but said the “emotional trauma” ran deep. “I’ve been here since 2006 and I suddenly felt like I wasn’t welcomed. I felt embarrassed and alone,” she said.
In September last year, two Indians studying at University College Cork complained after ropes were thrown around their necks by teenagers in the city centre. Recounting the details of the incident, Dr Lekha Menon Margassery, president of the UCC Indian Alumi Community, said one student was talking to his friend on the phone when a rope was thrown around his neck.
She adds that the second incident happened within a half an hour and involved the same group of teenagers.
Anti-immigrant feeling on the rise in Ireland
Officials and authorities note that a lot of the crimes being perpetrated is the result of a surge in anti-immigration stance among the locals. In 2023-2024, the Central Statistics Office revealed that 150,000 individuals relocated to Ireland, the highest influx in 17 years.
Moreover, Ireland has seen an exponential rise in Indian-origin citizens over the past few years. Census figures indicate a nearly 300 per cent jump over the last decade — from 11,465 to 45,449. According to reports, more than 10,000 people from the country had arrived in the 12 months leading up to the April 2022 census. Indians are now the third biggest foreign national group on the island, trailing only Polish and UK citizens.
More than a third of skilled employment permits awarded by the government to foreign nationals in 2024 went to Indians. Some 13,500 Indians secured work permits last year, compared to 4,553 Brazilians and 4,049 Filipino workers.
This has fuelled a lot of anger among the local Irish, who claim that it is because of immigration that Ireland suffers from a severe housing crisis, skyrocketing rental costs and increasing homelessness.
This anti-immigration anger even led to riots in several towns in Northern Ireland in June , which resulted in about 40 police officers being injured.
With inputs from agencies