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Pakistani shot at in U.K. raid

Hasan Suroor

Incident triggers row over police methods

LONDON: A 23-year-old man of Pakistani origin was shot by an anti-terror squad in east London on Friday reviving memories of an incident last July when armed policemen killed an innocent Brazilian youth on suspicion of carrying a bomb.

The injuries to the man, who was shot around the chest area, were said not to be life-threatening but the incident triggered a controversy over police methods to deal with terror suspects.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission, which automatically steps into such cases, announced that it would conduct an investigation into the shooting.

A spokesperson for the Commission said a single shot was fired but declined to say, to questions from the media, whether the man was armed.

The incident took place during an anti-terror raid on a house in Forest Gate, east London, a predominantly immigrant neighbourhood with a large Bangladeshi and Pakistani population. Though, officially, no details were available there were suggestions that the shooting may have followed a "confrontation'' with the police after they broke into the house on suspicion that explosives were being stored there. Eyewitnesses said they saw a young man in a blood-stained t-shirt being carried out of the house after the shooting. He was taken to hospital and arrested on suspicion of "commission, preparation and instigation of acts of terrorism.''

Another 20-year old man, believed to be his brother, was also arrested. The names of the two were not disclosed until late in the afternoon.

One eyewitness, Nimesh Patel, told the BBC that the police broke in through a window and the opened the front door. Neighbours described the family who lived in the house as "nice'' and "respectable'' people. Police said the raid was in response to "specific intelligence'' but not related to the July 7 London bombings.

It was the latest in a series of countrywide anti-terror raids in recent weeks as the police stepped up security in the run-up to the first anniversary of the July 7 attacks.

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