Islamists accused of stoking tension with wild claims

ISLAMIST radicals claimed girls were kidnapped and harassed by Hindus to inflame community tensions in Leicester and other English cities, a report has claimed.

Influencers used social media platforms with thousands of followers to spread false rumours about the activities of Hindu nationalists, it stated.

The Henry Jackson Society (HJS) think tank claims that disinformation about attacks on Muslims prompted a backlash against the Hindu community.

The HJS’s report accuses social media users of spreading claims, including accusations that Hindu nationalists had attacked a mosque, that a man tried to kidnap a schoolgirl and that three men had harassed a 14-year-old girl.

All three claims were rebutted by Leicester police, who said the reports had been found to be “not true”.

Influencers named in the report include Shakeel Afsar, who was banned in 2019 from organising protests against LGBT lessons, and Majid Freeman, who claimed on Twitter that a 17-year-old Muslim boy had been “grabbed by the neck” by two Hindu men. Inspector Yakub Ismail, of East Leicestershire Police, rejected the claim, tweeting: “We are not aware of this incident.”

HSJ, described as a neo-Conservative research and policy group, also examined the role of Mr Afsar, who was filmed on September 20 addressing a crowd of Muslim men outside Smethwick’s Durga Bhawan Temple and Cultural Centre – where a speech by a Hindu nationalist had been cancelled weeks earlier.

Speaking shortly before dozens of masked men tried to storm the building, Mr Afsar told the crowd: “Our people are targeted for... being Muslim. We will not allow BJP activists.”

The HSJ report also examines the role of Mohammed Hijab, who posted a video on September 19 in which he urged a crowd of young men in Leicester, several of them masked, to confront “Hindutva gangsters”.

The HSJ report claims that false allegations spread on social media “stoked tensions” and contributed to the violence that followed.

When we put the allegations to Mr Hijab he said there is a “clear agenda against me... and the Muslim community at large.” He added that the claims against him were unsubstantiated.

Mr Afsar said he “categorically rejected” claims that he had helped to inflame tensions.”

Mr Freeman denied the claims, stating: “This is an agenda driven piece of propaganda.”