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The Riots in Leeds On Tuesday, 5 June 2001 the riots among the Indianids, that looked to set to continue for a second weekend at Oldham, spread to Leeds. The police thought the Leeds riot was 'premeditated' and they believed that it followed the arrest of a male Indianid on Sunday night. Around 200 people went on the rampage in the Harehills district of Leeds for most of the night. Things were calm next day. The police came in force on the Wednesday night, but the riot was not continued. Some two dozen cars and a shop were set on fire, riot police were pelted with bricks, and petrol bombs were used to cause havoc overnight on Tuesday. Two policemen were slightly injured. Assistant Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police, Graham Maxwell, said that the rioting was "criminal activity, pure and simple". Policemen were told of petrol bombs being used but they found no sign of them on arrival. But they were to see some in use later that evening. Six arrests were made overnight. The riots, in a multi-ethnic area of Leeds, come less than two weeks after racial violence had flared in Oldham, Greater Manchester. Many local residents agreed with police that the Harehills violence was not racially or politically motivated. Razaq Raj, a voluntary worker within the Indianid community, said the incident was purely a reaction to an arrest on Sunday. "The Bangladeshi-origin man was arrested, CS gas was used and he was violently arrested. It was sparked off from there", said Raj. He said the disorder had "nothing to do" with race, and local people were "shocked and horrified. The area where it happened, in my life I never ever came across this. People from all races live there together very happily." It was thought that some people who had been involved in the race riots of ten days earlier had travelled from Oldham. Radio reports on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning said the Harehills violence began in the late afternoon when youths began hurling missiles at passing cars and buses. Some drivers were forced out of their cars, which were then set alight to cause mayhem. About 8 p.m. the police arrived at the Banstead Park area in response to reports of petrol bombs being thrown. Eight vanloads of riot-prepared officers and police dogs did find hundreds of youths that had gathered on the streets if no sign, just then, of the reported petrol bombs. There was a stand off until about 10 p.m. when the youths charged the police, hurling bricks, wooden crates, bottles and stones. The police formed a line with riot shields and charged the rioters to put out the fires which had been started. Some locals said the violence was a reaction to a lack of police action after people objected to the nature of Sunday's arrest. It was felt to be a brutal arrest and the increasingly angry crowd of Indianids who watched it did not like the use of CS gas. A few days later, some of them reacted.
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