IMAGINE a scenario where a group of, say, Christian men abduct and rape a number of young Muslim girls over years.

Actually, the response of the majority is not hard to predict: there would be blood on the streets from Kasur to Karachi; churches would have been destroyed, and entire communities torched.

Or transpose the same scenario to India, substituting Muslims for Christians. Mosques would have been demolished and Muslim villages across the country would have been wiped out.

But when something similar happened again and again in the UK, the reaction of the majority was disbelief, disgust and outrage.

In the latest grooming, kidnapping and rape case involving girls as young as 11 and a gang of mostly men of Pakistani origin, the judge pronounced 20 of them guilty of a “vile and wicked” crime.

The leader of the gang was Amere Singh Dhaliwal, a Sikh of Indian origin, and I can spot one more Sikh name on the list.

The rest of the names in this hall of shame are typical Pakistani Muslim names.

Unfortunately, this case that occurred in West Yorkshire between 2004 and 2011, is not the only one of its kind: in a series of stomach-churning incidents spanning years, scores of Brits of Pakistani origin have been convicted and sentenced.

At least three have been stripped of British nationality, and face deportation to Pakistan after they have completed their sentence.

A similar fate awaits more of the convicts.

Of course, the victims were badly let down by the police as well as by the social workers who were supposed to care for them.

But the accusations the girls made were simply not believed, and it was only after they were old enough to be taken seriously that cases were finally registered.

As in previous grooming and rape incidents involving gangs, the girls were plied with hard liquor and drugs to the point where they were willing to do anything to get more.

In a short and desperately sad TV series, we were shown vulnerable teenagers trying to break out of the vicious cycle they were locked in, but succumbing to the power violent adults exercised over them.

Luckily, Britain remains a largely lawful and tolerant society despite the spike in Islamophobia following the Brexit referendum two years ago.

There were no riots, no killings and no mosques or temples were burnt down.

However, Tell Mama, an NGO that tracks Islamophobic attacks, has reported a significant deterioration in anti-Muslim attitudes.

Often, hostile words, and rarer physical attacks, are directed at women covering themselves in burqas and full hijabs.

Ultra-liberal commentators have pointed out that the vast majority of sexual predators are white males, and yet they are never described as “British Christians”.

So why are the media, and specially the tabloid press, applying religious labels in cases involving Asian men?

The answer lies in the increasing hostility towards communities that refuse to integrate meaningfully, and reject the values and norms of the majority.

For a recent column (“Europe’s perplexed Pakistanis”; Oct 6) in the op-ed pages of this newspaper, Pervez Hoodbhoy talks to a group of Pakistani migrants in Sweden and comes across some interesting attitudes.

While they all said they were leading a good life, they had negative perceptions about the “bay hayaee” (sexual freedom) and “deen say doori” (lack of religious beliefs) that were prevailing in their host country. Actually, the same can be said of most Western countries.

In Britain, a recent survey has found that over half the population no longer believes in any religion, and yet the country remains far more ethical and honest than any pious state I know.

Hoodbhoy cites a study (“Masculinity, Sexuality and Illegal Migration: Human Smuggling from Pakistan to Europe”) by Ali Nobil Ahmad in which the author discusses the pull of “deep-seated psychological forces” that drive young males to leave a rigid, conventional society like Pakistan to seek sexual freedom abroad.

Often, relatives seek to bind them by “cousin marriages”, but these seldom slake the desire to try new experiences.

Occasionally, this lust leads them to join grooming gangs of the kind we have discussed.

Even though some members were as old as their mid-fifties, the easy availability of sex with pliant young girls was probably too tempting.

What else drives a wedge between the British Pakistani community and their English hosts? The list is long and occasionally petty.

For instance, consider pets. Brits spend a whopping 35 billion pounds a year on dogs and cats; this figure doesn’t include expenditure on horses, birds and goldfish.

But if you go to a park or a field, while you will see many white Brits walking their dogs, there will be hardly any Asian faces among the pet walkers.

We know about the Muslim prejudice against dogs, and a fear of canines is widespread across South Asia, expressed by mothers picking up their young children protectively if a dog approaches, wagging its tail.

A Pakistani friend who was supposed to come for a weekend with his young daughter turned down my invitation when he learned that I had a dog.

Even after I explained that the late Puffin was very friendly, and had never bitten anybody, he said his daughter would freak out.

But most of all, it is Muslim women covering themselves from head to toe that most enrages Brits of both genders and all political affiliations.

Even when I explain that the dress is usually not imposed but represents a personal choice, friends, especially women reply: “When we travel to Muslim countries, we are sensitive to the local dress code and take care to cover our arms and legs. Why don’t Muslim women show us the same respect?”

I’m not holding my breath waiting for these differences in attitudes to go away anytime soon.

irfan.husain@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, October 22nd, 2018