Muslims clash in Leeds over "offensive" scenes in Border

People in India who have seen the film report that the only scene in which the Koran figures is when an Indian soldier runs into a burning house and rescues a Koran, which he then raises to his forehead and hands back to the owner of the house.

According to reports, the problem started when a Muslim youth went into Krishna Videos and asked the proprietor if he intended to stock Border’s cassette when it was released. The proprietor said he would, and the youth threatened to burn his shop down.

Others then gathered outside, and the police were called. In the clash that followed, the youths pelted policemen with bricks and bottles.

Though Chapletown, where Krishna Videos is located, is an ethnically mixed area, local people say the Asian community there has lived amicably and there have been no communal flare-ups. But following yesterday’s incident, plans to screen the film at the city’s Odeon cinema this weekend have been shelved.

The Director of the region’s Race Equality Council, Ishtiaq Ahmed, admitted that the entire episode was probably a result of misinformation, and that by not showing the film, this might only increase.

Wednesday’s episode, according to Ahmed, had to do with “unemployment, low moral among young people and a climate of youth frustration, pessimism and cynicism, in which any kind of rumour can incite or provoke”. He also admitted the responsibility of community leaders, including himself, for carrying “prejudices brought with us ”.

Sanjiv Buttoo, a journalist with BBC radio, Leeds, who has reported on Asian community affairs for seven years, said he was “mystified”. It is “unusual for young lads to go into a shop like this”, he felt, adding “the youths may been provoked by some organisation”. Leeds’ city councillors for the area have declined to give interviews because they feel that this will only draw attention to what is a “small incident blown completely out of proportion”. Yet the feeling is that what happened on Wednesday night was not unplanned. “People came out so quickly 300 or 400 people don’t just hang out on the streets,” point out some. One organisation that is active among Muslim youths in Britain is Hizb-ur-Tahrir, an extremist Islamic group that gets funds from West Asia and the Gulf. While it is impossible to point fingers, the Hizb-ur-Tahrir is active in many places where there has been communal tension within the Asian community in recent years, including in West London, where Sikh and Muslim youths have formed gangs.

One local councillor, Javed Akhtar, told the Press that police tactics were “heavy-handed” and that the heavy deployment made the situation worse.