U.K. Pakistanis Plan Defences

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32119, 15 October 1969, Page 15

U.K. Pakistanis Plan Defences

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, October 14. London’s Pakistani community will form street committees as a defence against attacks by young thugs. This plan to combat racial violence was formed at a meeting of Pakistanis, assisted by members of an extreme Left-wing group, in Gower Street, Euston, on Sunday.

Newspapers reported that committees were being formed at first in the EustonKings Cross area, where more than 1000 Pakistanis live. The Pakistanis have complained of assaults, usually for robbery, a petrol bomb at-

tack on a house, and window smashing in the areas in which they live. Revolutionary students leader, Tariq All, addressing the meeting, urged coloured workers to action in “ghettos all over the country.” “We should confront the oppressors in their very homes,” he said. “If necessary we will build barricades and defend our areas.”

Delegates to the meeting organised by the Pakistan Workers’ Union and the Maoist-style Working People’s Party of England, said recruiting for committees would begin at once and immigrant vigilantes would be schooled in karate. The chairman of the Workers’ Union, Mr Abdul Ishaque, said the police had shown they would not or could not solve the problem of this persecution of coloured immigrants.

“The thugs think they will never be prosecuted.” he said. “When nobody is protecting you, then you must protect yourself. “The situation is very bad and getting worse.” More than 60 cases of assault had been documented, he said. Tariq Ali condemned Britain’s Race Relations Board as one of “The Stooge Uncle Tom Organisations” set up to keep coloured people out of British politics. “I do not believe there is a Race Relations Board,” he said.

“If there was they would have been at the Conservative conference charging people as they trooped out.”