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Camden New Journal - by PAUL KEILTHY
Published: 26 July 2007

Alcohol poured on headscarf in attack

Crisis talks on racist assaults and gang clashes

ATTACKS on Muslim women in headscarves and trouble between youth gangs prompted Bengali community leaders to call an emergency summit with police and the council on Tuesday.
Bengali Workers Association director Mukid Choudhury, who called the meeting at the Surma Centre, in Regent’s Park, cited two incidents this month in which the hijab was “insulted”.
In one, alcohol was poured on a woman’s traditional headscarf in Chalton Street, Somers Town, and in the other the scarf was pulled from a woman’s head in Morrisons supermarket in Chalk Farm.
One resident, Joynal Uddin, challenged councillors and police to tackle youth crime.
His 16-year-old son needed hospital treatment after an attack in Hampstead Gardens, Regent’s Park, on July 8, following the stabbing of a Bengali teenager at a Chalton Street youth club.
He said: “I have been witnessing what happens on the Regent’s Park every night. This council spends millions of pounds on CCTV but when it is needed it is not working. What are the councillors doing in that council chamber?”
Camden’s acting police commander, Superintendent Martin Richards, said: “There has been some escalation of violence with our gangs.” He added that the Met had recently launched Operation Curb to tackle crime among the under-20s.
But Supt Richards insisted racist crime was being constantly monitored and had shown no significant increase in the wake of recent attempted terrorist attacks in the West End and Glasgow.
He said: “I have looked at race crime figures over the last three weeks to see if there has been any increase. There has not.”
But former councillor Abdul Qadir said figures covering the last year showed a rise in racist crime of 37 per cent.
He added: “The police have a hard job to do – they have to implement the laws of the land – but we on the receiving end feel that not enough is being done.
“Why should we see this sort of increase on our streets?”
Town Hall community safety officer Katie Thomas said the council had launched policies specifically to tackle youth disorder.
The recently-reinstated youth disorder group is looking at hotspots in Regent’s Park and Somers Town wards “where there are incidents occurring time and time again”, she added.

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