The Metropolitan Police assured the British Hindu community that it will take action on widespread resentment about aggressive conversion techniques and intimidation employed against young Hindu girls by radical Muslim groups in university campuses. The comments were made last night at a conference organised by the Hindu Forum of Britain and the National Hindu Students Forum.

These, and other issues confidence issues like Stop and Search and under-reporting of hate crime by Hindus, will be the subject of enquiry of a Hindu Safety Forum to be formed by the Metropolitan Police. Sir Ian Blair, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police admitted at the conference, “There is a feeling in the Hindu community that we have not given them as much attention as other groups.”

The conference, organised in partnership with the Metropolitan Police Hindu Association, attracted 160 youth, community leaders, and stakeholders from the Criminal Justice System. Tom Lund-Lack, an expert on Islamist Terrorism at the Met spoke about the vital differences between terrorist groups like the Provisional IRA and Al-Qaeda, while Commander Rod Jarman spoke about the impact of Stop and Search on ethnic communities.

Ramesh Kallidai, secretary general of the Hindu Forum of Britain said, “The Police and other agencies have no idea about the high levels of resentment building up in the Hindu and Sikh communities over aggressive conversion techniques and intimidation by radical Islamist groups on campuses. Families are being broken down, while some of our girls have even been beaten up and had to leave university. We need to look at positive action rather than just speaking about these issues. I hope the proposed Hindu Safety Forum will be able to proactively tackle these issues.”

Young students and Hindu leaders broke into groups to discuss issues like mistaken identity leading to Islamophobist attacks on Hindus, evidence of stop and search profiling of Indians because they looked ‘Asian’, and hate attack against Hindu temples.

Speakers and panellists at the conference included Tony McNulty MP, Minister for State for Security and Policing, Dr Rob Berkeley Deputy Director of the Runnymede Trust, Raj Joshi, the senior-most Hindu serving in the Crown Prosecution Service, Commander Rod Jarman, Cllr Richard Barnes from the Metropolitan Police Association and Chief Superintendent Steve Jordan, Security Lead on the Commission of Integration and Cohesion.