India and Australia condemn woman killing in Sydney

India’s foreign ministry has said it has taken up the murder of an Indian woman in a Sydney park with the premier of New South Wales.

Prabha Arun Kumar, 41, died in a stabbing attack while speaking to her husband in India on the phone on Saturday evening, reports said.

Ms Kumar, an info-tech professional, was on her way back home.

No arrests have been made so far and police have appealed for any witnesses to come forward with information.

India’s Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj said she was “pained” by the murder.

Foreign ministry spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin tweeted on Monday that India’s consul general was “pursuing [the] issue of Mrs Prabha Arun Kumar’s sad death with New South Wales Premier”.

New South Wales Premier Mike Baird condemned the “brutal and cowardly attack” and said all efforts would be made to “bring the perpetrators of this horrific crime to justice”.

On Sunday, Ms Kumar’s husband flew to Australia from India, where he lives with the couple’s nine-year-old-daughter.

Ms Kumar was stabbed when she was taking a shortcut home through Parramatta Park in Sydney and talking on the phone with her husband, reports said.

“He stabbed me darling,” she reportedly told her husband after which the conversation ended, Sydney’s The Daily Telegraph reported.

“It is a horrific attack without any stretch of the imagination,” Sydney police superintendent Wayne Cox was quoted as saying by the AFP news agency.

There were a number of attacks on Indian students in Australia in 2010, which caused outrage in India and led to a diplomatic row between the two countries.

Australian police blamed the attacks on opportunistic criminals, but some Indian students saw them as racist.