Indian-origin man dies after racial attack in London

LONDON: A 67-year-old Indian died in a London hospital on Monday after a gang of teenage schoolboys beat him mercilessly in what the police say is a racist attack.

Kolkata-born Ekram ul Haque was brought to the hospital in a critical condition.

Ekram ul Haque was battered to the ground in front of his five-year-old granddaughter as they returned from a local south London mosque, police said.

Three teenage boys have been charged with assaulting Haque and a man in his 40s near Tooting, an area dominated by Asians.

The victim's granddaughter Marian, who was unhurt in the incident, gave a detailed account of the incident which took place on August 31. Police have sought help of eye witnesses.

Scotland Yard on Monday said the assault was being treated as "racially motivated."

Haque moved to Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland, in 1972. He met his wife there and the couple moved to London in the early 1980s.

He worked in the textile industry but later became a warden in a home for the disabled from which he retired last year.

Haque's 35-year-old son described the attack as "mindless violence."