Greater Manchester, home to some 2.5 million people, is one of Britain’s most diverse cities with some 14 per cent of the population in central Manchester having Asian roots.

Many within the Asian community were involved in efforts to support those impacted by the suicide bombing as well as those within the emergency services, including the city’s five Gurdwaras. “When it all happened it was chaos and people were fleeing and the Guru Harkrishnan Sahib Ji Gurdwara which was near the venue started taking people in from the outside, giving them a hot drink, somewhere to sit, a place of shelter where they wouldn’t be attacked,” said Prakash Singh, President of the Sri Guru Gobind Singh Gurdwara.

“Today, we are all carrying on with this work, providing langhar , and food and drink to those who have been in the Town Hall and working through the night. The doors are open in all five Gurdwaras for people who need a place to sit, or are looking for people not accounted for,” he said. He added that while people were continuing with their business there was a tense atmosphere in the city, but he remained hopeful that the city would not be divided by the attack.

In the wake of the attacks there are concerns about a potential backlash against certain communities. Dr Kailash Chand, a well-known NHS campaigner and northwest chairman of the British Medical Association, said that he had been receiving messages from parents in India to reiterate to their children in the city the need to be cautious about potential retributive attacks.

Hate crimes have already been a concern in the city and surrounding areas, as they have across the UK in recent months, with Andy Burnham, the recently elected Labour Mayor, stressing the need for “hope not hate” to tackle the region’s challenges, and his zero tolerance policy on hate crime.

Chand also commended hospital staff across the region (8 hospitals are currently dealing with the injured). Many members of staff had gone to work, off shift and without even being called to work, to tend the injured.

“There is a terrible sense of shock about what happened last night,” says Raj Dutta, the general secretary of the Indian Association of Manchester, who has lived in the city area since 1970.

The incident came a day after the Indian High Commissioner YK Sinha and members of the Indian community gathered outside the Indian High Commission to take the Anti Terrorism Pledge, alongside other missions across the world.

“We are shocked and saddened at what happened yesterday,” Indian Deputy High Commissioner in London Dinesh Patnaik told this paper. “We have seen an increase in terrorism across the world and in quick succession in Britain with these recent attacks. It is time for the international community to take stock of what is happening and go ahead with fighting terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.”

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