The Foreign Office (FO) on Monday strongly condemned the “increasingly racist and Islamophobic” rhetoric directed at Pakistanis in the UK, expressing deep concern over the demonization of the entire community based on the reprehensible actions of a few.

The FO’s statement followed a social media controversy involving tech billionaire Elon Musk, who entered into a heated debate over the term “Asian grooming gangs”. Musk’s remarks raised concerns about reinforcing harmful stereotypes about Pakistanis.

Using his platform X (formerly Twitter), Musk criticized the UK government for nurturing gangs and accused a prominent Labor leader of being an “apologist for rape genocide”. He went further and demanded that both the Labor leader and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer be jailed.

The debate intensified when Priyanka Chaturvedi, a leader of India’s Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray faction), tweeted: “Repeat after me, they are not Asian grooming gangs, but PAKISTANI grooming gangs.” Musk responded with a short “true.”

Foreign Office spokesman Shafqat Ali Khan issued a detailed statement expressing deep concern at the growing tendency to conflate the criminal acts of a few individuals with the entire British Pakistani community.

“As such, we note with deep concern the increasingly racist and Islamophobic political and media commentary in the UK that aims to conflate the reprehensible actions of a few individuals with the entire 1.7 million British Pakistani diaspora,” Khan said.

He highlighted the longstanding friendship between Pakistan and Britain, calling it a relationship characterized by “warmth, cordiality, robust cooperation and trust.”

“Nurtured over decades, this relationship remains an important priority in Pakistan’s foreign policy,” he added.