The spate of recent court convictions of UK Muslim alleged sex gangs in the last few years have hit the national news headlines and public opinion is now aware of an emerging pattern : Muslim men sexually targeting non-Muslim girls.

This unfortunately is not a new phenomenon in the UK and many Sikh and Hindu girls have for at least since the 1980s had to bear the brunt of either Muslim sex gangs and/or extremist Islamic groups bent on the Islamic conversion of non-Muslim girls.

The Sikh Organisation called 'Shere Panjab' was founded in the Handsworth area of Birmingham in the 1980s by some young Sikhs to try to stop the rape, grooming, abuse and aggressive conversions of young Sikh and Hindu girls in the West Midlands by gangs of predominately Pakistani-Muslim youths. Such cases were commonplace in the 1980s - as they are now - and the UK has only recently started waking up to what Sikhs and Hindus were complaining against decades ago.

Although outnumbered nationally by Pakistanis in the UK - the Sikhs in Shere Panjab faced this menace head-on and were never afraid to either meet these Muslim gangs on a street-level or never minced their words about this problem when appearing on national UK television.

Below is an article reproduced from the 'Independent'newspaper from 1989 which covered the trial of some young Sikhs who were trying to defend their communities from Pakistani-Muslim sex gangs:

The Independent, June 24 1989, Saturday

Sikh girls 'used as sex slaves'

GANGS OF Muslim men toured daytime discotheques kidnapping Sikh girls to use as sex slaves, a court was told yesterday.

The jury at the trial of 13 Sikh men at Birmingham Crown Court heard claims that one gang forced girls into prostitution and blackmailed their parents.

The Sikhs were said to be members of the Shere Punjab, a vigilante gang, who were arrested - armed with sticks and bottles - while on their way to confront the rival Muslim gang, the Aston Panthers, in Handsworth, Birmingham, last June.

Gurmek Singh Chahal, 20, told the court the Panthers used Indian girls for sex and prostitution. 'The Shere Punjab was formed to stop the intimidation of our society by the Muslim society.'

Chahal and two other men were each given a two-year conditional discharge for using threatening behaviour. Similar sentences had earlier been passed on eight others who had pleaded guilty. Another two were cleared.

Also - as featured on the BNP website previously - is a TV report first shown on BBC TV's 'Network East' programme in 1988 - report entitled 'Gang Warfare in Birmingham' - about attempts by the Sikh 'Shere Panjab' to stop the targeting of Sikh girls by Pakistani-Muslim gangs.