LONDON, Nov 1: A London-based Muslim religious leader advised England’s cricket authorities on Thursday to call off their forthcoming tour of India as their security could not be guaranteed in the wake of United States-led bombing raids on Afghanistan.

Sheikh Abu Hamsa al-Masri said: “England must cancel the tour. Only that way can the England team invest in their future security.

“As England have ground troops working in Afghanistan, it might be high risk for an England team to go anywhere near that area,” Hamsa said in the Evening Standard newspaper on Thursday.

“It would be wise for the England team to show solidarity with those civilians of Afghanistan who lost their lives to show the whole Muslim world they are against the killing of civilians,” he added.

Hamsa said a potential consequence of the military action in Afghanistan was that there was now a risk to England’s cricketers in India.

“The Afghans don’t have much influence in India. The risk will come from Muslim sympathisers inside India,” he said.

“The political situation inside India is that it can explode at any time and England could get caught up in it. India is a country rub by bribes,” Hamsa insisted.

“It is no good saying ‘but this is only sport’. Let us not forget that young children of Afghanistan, who were probably playing sport, have been killed by the American warplanes.”

Hamsa continued: “There can be no safety guarantees this year, next year, whenever. People don’t get hit when they expect to be hit. It can come suddenly at any time.”

Hamsa, who can only see out of one eye, was recently forced to relinquish control of a mosque in Finsbury Park, north London and has been a controversial figure in British public life.

He is reported to be under surveillance by British security services because of alleged links with Osama bin Laden.—AFP