Newcastle restaurant targeted with racist abuse
The owner of a Newcastle restaurant has been targeted with xenophobic abuse since the UK voted to leave the EU last month.
Shasiqul Islam (pictured), owner of the Bindi in the city, has spoken out after menus from the venue were defaced with hostile comments such as: "Muslims are filth" and "Mohammed is a peedo [sic]" and posted through the restaurant's door.
A message in marker pen on one of the menus told Islam: "go back to your own country", despite him being born and raised in Britain.
Staff at the Bindi also received aggressive phone calls telling them to "go back to their own country".
Islam has owned the Bindi for 15 years and told Newcastle's Chronicle Live that he felt let down not only by the vandals, but by the government.
He said: "I am a British person; everything I do is British. I am more British than anything else by far. My heart just dropped when I read it. To write a thing like that and deliver it through my letterbox, it is just so shocking.
"I think the EU referendum was the trigger; people are frustrated and angry and this brought it all to the surface. If the government had been doing its job properly people wouldn't be confused and angry."
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