Introduction

BRADFORD WAS the fourth northern English city to be racked by violence involving whites, South Asian immigrants and police in late May and early July of 2001. At the height of the clashes, several hundred youths-some say over a thousand-erected burning barricades, set cars on fire, and showered police with Molotov cocktails, bricks, bottles and other debris. They attacked each other, and the police, with bats, knives and other lethal weapons. Police helicopters were hovering overhead. Dozens of paddy wagons with officers in riot gear tried to patrol the streets of central Bradford. About 200 police officers were reported to have been injured by mobs of white, Pakistani, Indian, Sri Lankan and Bangladeshi youths. Nineteen civilians had injuries too on first count. Thirty-six rioters were arrested, two-thirds of them South Asians. In earlier years of English racial violence, South Asians had tended to be mostly at the receiving end of ‘Paki-bashing’.