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LONDON: Around 200 Sikh men and women surrounded a council flat in Hounslow on Sunday night where they said a 34-year-old Afghan man was grooming a 16-year-old Sikh girl.The parents of the schoolgirl had approached a gurdwara in Slough seeking help as they were frantically worried about their daughter, who had left home to live with the man. She had been meeting the man since the age of 14 or 15 and had been groomed, the protesters said.A video on Instagram shows one of the Sikh men confronting the man on the stairs and accusing him of being a paedophile. He said, “You brainwashed and manipulated her. This isn’t Afghanistan, this is England. Why can’t you find someone of your own age?”He accused the Afghan of keeping the girl in his flat from 5 am to 10 pm with five or six other men. The Afghan man replied he was in love with the girl and said he didn’t know her age.A neighbour said she had seen many underage girls go into the Afghan’s flat over nine years and said she had told the police numerous times. “There are about four guys in there,” she said. “It’s disgusting.” The flat has been raided for drugs and is near a school.Sikhs stood outside shouting ”Pedos out”. One shouted: “The parents have gone to the police many times and nothing is being done. Why is this happening in the UK 2026? The police are turning a blind eye.”Jaspal Singh of the group Shere Panjab is seen in one video bashing on the man’s door and a crowd of Sikh men behind him shout “paedophile” and “pervert”.Eventually the police were called and the man was taken away in a police van and the girl went back to her family, who were part of the demonstration.Jaspal said: “Why is it that Sikhs had to put a stop to this when police couldn’t? This is disgraceful. We are doing the police’s job. The Sikh community has been dealing with this for many years and we have had enough.”Sikh Youth UK has now launched a national inquiry into Sikh victims of grooming gangs.The Met police was yet to respond to TOI’s query at the time if going to press.
