Three men were being questioned in custody today after petrol bombs were thrown and eight people injured in a major riot in the northern English city of Bradford, police said.
Three public houses were damaged and eight cars torched when about 50 young Asians ran riot until 2 a.m. this morning, they said.
The trouble started late yesterday apparently at a public house where a Hindu marriage was being celebrated. Police said two groups of young men left the bar and started attacking others in the street.
Police Inspector Mark Whyman said: "There didn't seem to be any planning involved, it just seemed to be a spontaneous incident."
"There are tensions in Bradford, it is a multicultural society, but our work hasn't given us indications of problems that we saw...last night," he told a press conference.
"It blew up extremely quickly but we also gained control very quickly," the officer said.
Clients at one of the public houses attacked had to flee to the first floor when the building was surrounded.
Eyewitness William Hand said: "Fifty or 60 Asians came running round and started banging the windows of The Old Fellows pub just across the road. They then started throwing petrol bombs through the windows of our pub.
"There were children in the pub, four to five-year-olds, and we were just clinging together like sardines. We were so frightened"
AFP