UK's Indian-origin counter-terror chief calls for religious inclusivity

The UK's senior-most counter-terrorism officer on Wednesday called for greater social mobility and religious inclusivity to help security forces combat terrorism.

Neil Basu, Scotland Yard's Indian-origin chief of counter-terror policing, said no community should be expected to "assimilate" because all religious faiths have the right to freedom of religion as long as it does not cause any harm.

"Assimilation implies that I have to hide myself in order to get on. We should not be a society that accepts that," Basu told newspaper The Guardian in an interview.

"You should be able to practise your religion without suffering some condemnation of that; so my view is 'do no harm'. And that does not matter whether you are conservative Islamic, conservative Christian, conservative Hindu, conservative Sikh.

"You should be able to practise your culture or religion openly and still be accepting of others, and others be accepting of you. That is a socially inclusive society," Basu is quoted as saying.

The Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner said the police and security services were not enough to win the fight against violent extremism, and the UK must instead improve community cohesion, social mobility and education.

He said, "Policies that go towards more social inclusion, more social mobility and more education are much more likely to drive down violence than all the policing and state security apparatus put together. It is much more likely to have a positive effect on society.

"The prescription for me is around social inclusion it's social mobility, it's education, it's opportunity."