AFP/London
Three Asian men died yesterday after being hit by a car during riots in the central English city of Birmingham, officials said.Witnesses said they died while trying to protect their community from looters. Police said they had arrested a man and launched a murder inquiry after the incident which happened at around 1am as Britain’s second largest city suffered from another night of riots.Paramedics said they found around 80 people at the scene after the men were hit by the car.Two of the men were pronounced dead on the spot and the third died later in hospital.Witnesses and family members said the victims were Asian men and were part of a group protecting the area from looting after local people had left a local mosque. “People came out of prayers and they were protecting the area. My friends were targeted - they were standing on the side of the road and the car just came and ran them over,” witness Kabir Khan Isakhel said.Another witness said the incident happened after a car was set ablaze in a nearby street and youths gathered, prompting local people to defend a local shopping area. “They lost their lives for other people, doing the job of the police,” Mohamed Shakiel said outside the hospital where the men were taken, prompting around 200 people to gather in support.“They were protecting the community as a whole.” Several cars drove past the group as it was guarding the stores and the occupants shouted abuse before one vehicle returned and mounted the pavement at “tremendous speed” and hit the men, throwing them into the air, Shakiel said.Tariq Jahan, the father of Haroon Jahan, one of the men who died, told the BBC: “I’ve got no words to describe what, why he was taken and why this has happened.”Tariq Jahan said he had rushed to aid the dying man hit by the car only to find it was his 21-year-old son. “I heard the thud, ran around and I saw three people on the ground,” Tariq Jahan told reporters. “My instinct was to help the three people. I didn’t know who they were, who’d been injured. I helped the first man, and somebody from behind told me my son was lying behind me. “So I started CPR on my own son. My face was covered in blood, my hands were covered in blood.”“He was a very good lad, starting at the beginning of his life. He had his whole life ahead of him. It makes no sense why people are behaving like this and taking the lives of three innocent people.”“I don’t understand. We are here defending the community of all the problems that are going on in the country. He was trying to help his community.”Tariq said his son was well-liked and well-known in the community. “You lose your son, I can’t describe to anyone what it feels like to lose your son,” he said.Police said a 32-year-old man was being held on suspicion of murder. It said the victims were aged 20, 30 and 31.