Police said earlier in the day four unidentified assailants had fatally stabbed Nitesh Kumar Singh, a sixth-year student at the St. Petersburg Mechnikov Medical Academy, on late Sunday evening.
Andrei Lavrenko met Monday with a group of foreign students, who had gathered in front of the prosecutor's office building to remember the Indian.
"We have gathered ample information, taken a number of investigative steps and we will keep you informed about the course of the investigation," Lavrenko said. "We will do everything to solve this crime."
He also told them that additional measures would be taken in a bid to guarantee safety where foreign students, who come to Russia to take advantage of high-quality education at low prices but have been subjected to increasing attacks in recent months, were known to congregate.
The chairman of the St. Petersburg's local legislature said he was stunned by the Indian student's death.
"I am shocked with the new instance of nationalism in St. Petersburg," Vadim Tyulpanov said. "Attempts are being made to force us to become accustomed to this through the exploitation of a pseudo-patriotic idea about a nationwide sense of humiliation in the face of the world's dislike for Russia. But Russia's unity has been always based on ideals of truth, kindness and justice and not on hatred toward foreigners. It is strange and frightening that not everyone understands this."
The attack was only the latest in a long line involving foreigners in St. Petersburg. Also on Sunday, a Sudanese national was hospitalized with a head injury and concussion after a group of unidentified assailants attacked him.
Russia's second city has experienced a wave of apparently racially motivated attacks on non-Russians this year. Alleged neo-Nazi assaults and killings have also included the beating of a Chinese student, and the stabbing of a nine-year-old girl of mixed Russian-African origin in early 2006.
Other violent attacks on non-white foreigners in St. Petersburg in the last year included an attack on a man from Mali, who was stabbed to death in February, and the killings of a student from Cameroon last December and a Congolese student in September.
