Just as we went to press we had a report that Lord Ahmed appeared on Radio 5 Live on Wednesday 13 July on the Nicky Campbell show and falsely accused Sikhs of carrying out a suicide bombing to kill Rajiv Gandhi. Young Sikhs (UK) was immediately on to Radio 5 Live to point out the mistake made by Lord Ahmed. The BBC was asked to make a correction pointing out those responsible for killing Rajiv Gandhi were not Sikhs, but Hindu Tamils and to allow a Sikh on air to give a Sikh perspective and put the record straight. Given the totally unjust attacks on Sikhs and our religious institutions, Sikhs need to be vigilant of those that will deliberately or otherwise show Sikhs in a negative light and guard against those completely ignoring Sikhs. The question also needs to be asked: was this a genuine mistake by an intelligent and articulate politician who should know much better or was it deliberate to deflect attention away from Muslims. The Sikh assistant to Lord Ahmed was also immediately contacted and asked to have words with Lord Ahmed. The assistant said Lord Ahmed was told he had made a mistake and he agreed to ring Radio 5 Live to point this out. It was described as a "slip of the tongue" - is this good enough when said on national radio? People need to be very clear about suicide bombings. The first recorded suicide bombing took place during the Crusades in the 11th century, when the Christians deliberately blew up one of their ships, losing 140 men but killing many more Muslims. In World War II, Japanese kamikaze pilots saw it as an honour to fly missions which led to certain death. In modern times suicide attacks started in Beirut in 1981. The first such bombings in the West were the September 11 attacks and Britain's first suicide bomber was Asif Hanif who blew himself up in Tel Aviv in 2003.

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