Talk:Paki Pantherz

The Paki Pantherz are a gang in London

Location

London Boroughs of Newham and Waltham Forest, predominantly based in Newham borough around Upton Lane, Green Street and East Ham in the E6 and E7 postal districts.

History

The Paki Panthers gang in London, not to be confused with Birmingham Paki Panthers or Muslim Birmingham Panthers, began around 1999-00 in East London and were predominantly based in the east London boroughs of Newham, Waltham Forest and Redbridge. The gang were often reported by the media as a racist group who attacked non-Pakistani youths around east London. They began to gain recognition predominantly in the local media throughout 2002-2005 for their violence. They often fought with black gangs with a number of serious incidents occurring around Leyton College. The Pantherz were one of many Pakistani youth gangs that were used largely by adult criminals within the community to carry out crimes that linked in to higher profile organised networks which could include high value car thefts and street level retail of drugs. As the gang became older high profile incidents of violence were less frequent and a younger generation superseded the Panthers - Asian Virus.

Some violence involving the gang returned to Leyton Sixth Form College in early 2008 when two teenagers, aged 17 and 19, were stabbed by members of the gang who were armed with knives, baseball bats, bricks and pieces of wood. The incident occurred around Essex Road and Griggs Road and followed a gang-related exchange a few days earlier whereby a 21-year-old was stabbed outside a petrol station in nearby Leyton High Road.

Many of the families that sit above Asian gangs in east London are not widely known publicly, in comparison to the likes of white crime families, although there are a few exceptions that have come to media attention (for example the Dar's from Walthamstow and Khan's from East Ham). The Asian "strongholds" in terms of youth gang activity and street level influence are the southern parts of Hoe Street, Queen Street, Avenues and St Stephen's Close (Walthamstow), Lea Bridge Road and Leytonstone terraces (Leyton and Leytonstone) and East Ham, Green Street, Manor Park and Upton (Newham).

These younger street based crews (often without specific names) link in to the older and former members with familial links to specialised family based drug gangs across Newham & Waltham Forest boroughs. The younger generation, Asian Virus, has a large membership and have numerous rivals across east London. The murder of Adam Regis in 2007 was implicated as being committed by Asian Virus on the Panorama documentary On a knife edge, aired in August 2007. Prior to the documentary police were investigating the possibility that Adam may have been murdered as part of a gang initiation ritual. The callous killers have yet to be caught however police have recently made new arrests in the case.

In 2009 and 2010 police activity that targeted some of the more senior elements in which the street gangs sit beneath resulted in some considerable sentences being handed out.

Dutch national Patrick Kuster working with east London pair Harminder Chana, 31, and Atif Khan, 33, were arrested after police seized 350kg worth of heroin from a Seat Leon and BMW at a service station car park near junction 8 on the M20. The pair from East Ham and Ilford were sentenced to 17 years after being found guilty in the summer of 2009. Khan was arrested outside his home in Ilford and found in possession of keys for a safe house in York Close, Beckton, which contained a bag of Mannitol, commonly used for cutting cocaine. Also sentenced in 2010, although for mid-level distribution rather than importation, was Israar Shah from Dagenham and Janwais Khan from East Ham. Shah was given 16-and-a-half years for possession with intent to supply heroin whilst Khan was sentenced to six years. Officers watched as deals involving up to 600 grams at a time were made across east London. During the course of the investigation police seized in excess of 200 kilos of class A drugs and money and assets worth more than £1,000,000.

Asian Virus

Asian Virus were a younger generation that followed on from the Paki Panthers. The gang was well known amongst the younger members of the community in Newham and they have been involved in a number of violent exchanges with rival gangs whilst they have also been the alleged suspects in attacks against innocent individuals. Originating in E7 to the north of Green Street area, the gang was not greatly turf orientated and had membership across a wide area of the borough between West Ham Park, Forest Gate, Canning Town and Beckton.

Seven Asian teenagers in the AV area, aged 14-16, murdered 13-year-old Lithuanian schoolboy Deividas Strizegauskas during a fight near West Ham’s football stadium. Deividas died after suffering serious head injuries in the fight at Princes Terrace in April 2006. It happened outside Brampton Manor school when two groups of boys began fighting, teachers tried to intervene but were tragically too late to save his life. There is a history of tension between predominantly Asian youth gangs within the school, Deividas was friends with a rival group, Newham Somalians who had been in conflict with AV. Shortly after the death of Adam Regis, as previously mentioned, two Somali gang members stabbed a young passenger yards from the murder, when asked why at court they replied “for fun”. Later in 2007 a fight between rival youths from two Asian gangs, P-Road and Asian Virus, left a rival boy virtually blind in one eye after a vicious attack on a packed bus in Prince Regent Lane, Plaistow. The boy claimed that he had been an innocent victim who was confronted on a 162 bus to Beckton. He pushed one of them back to stop them coming to the top of the bus when one of them stabbed him in the leg grabbing him to the floor and beating him while passengers looked on. The fight was a culmination of physical confrontations that had began at their school.

In more recent times there has been a resurgence in the use of the name 'Paki Panthers' more associated with olders, typical of the original Paki Panthers violence between them and rival predominantly black gangs has occurred at colleges in east London and at The Brewery complex in Romford.

Sources

https://sites.google.com/site/londonstreetgangs/gang-lists/east-london-gangs/paki-panthers http://forums.ratedesi.com/showthread.php?t=125391 http://www.stormfront.org/forum/t563613/