LANCASHIRE'S Police Commissioner Clive Grunshaw and Blackburn MP Kate Hollern will seek to reassure local Muslims about their safety from right-wing extremists following the New Zealand terror attack.

They will attend a meeting at 6pm tomorrow at the town's Bangor Community Centre organised by Bastwell and Daisyfield ward's Cllr Shaukat Hussain.

It will discuss both last Friday's Christchurch shooting in which 50 worshippers died and four recent sledgehammer attacks on mosques in Birmingham.

Cllr Hussain, Blackburn with Darwen Council's neighbourhoods boss, said: "We are saddened by the latest attack on Muslims in Christchurch, New Zealand.

"Words cannot express the pain, sorrow and sense of loss that we feel as a community as we are reminded of the horrific attack on Manchester, less than two years ago, when 22 innocent children were murdered.

"Emerging reports from New Zealand indicate much of the ideological motivation was derived from the UK.

"Last Friday, although worshippers attended prayers, they did so with a sense of trepidation. We did not feel safe. The vulnerability of identifiable Muslim institutions and gathering places is all too apparent.

"There is significant concern within the Muslim community of the Blackburn region around issues of safety; the far right threat and what the relevant authorities are doing to address them. This has been deepened by the recent attacks on Mosques in Birmingham."

Rossendale and Darwen MP Jake Berry said yesterday: "Violence is to be condemned in all of its forms and we remember especially at this time our Muslim neighbours."

Cllr Hussain added:"The manifesto published by the Christchurch terrorist cites a number of examples from Britain, of far right anti Muslim propaganda, which acted as a catalyst for him to attack innocent worshippers at the mosque.

"Clearly attacking the Muslim community is merely a gateway for the right wing to undermine our shared values and collective democratic institutions.

"This is evidenced globally by right wing terror attacks on synagogues, Sikh temples, anti racism rallies and the wholesale slaughter of young progressive socialists in Norway. Today it is Muslims; tomorrow it will be others in a repetition of events of the 1930s.

"We are organising a public meeting, to provide an opportunity for members of the Blackburn Muslim community and relevant stakeholders to discuss the issue and give the authorities and its representatives, an opportunity to explain and reassure the Muslim community, given the level of threat we face from the far right."