Community shock over 'dumped' boy

Gurrinder Singh said he has been living with his uncle for three years

Leaders from the Punjabi community have said the "unprecedented" incident of a nine-year-old boy being abandoned in west London has "shocked" everybody.

Gurrinder Singh, a Sikh who speaks only Punjabi, was found in a clinic in Hartington Road, Southall, last Tuesday afternoon.

He told interpreters his uncle had left him at a bus stop.

On Sunday a Metropolitan Police spokesman said: "Child trafficking is one obvious line of inquiry".

Community members met with Ealing and Southall MP Virendra Sharma at Sri Guru Sabha Gurdwara in Southall, on Sunday.

As a faith organisation we will be saying prayers to hopefully bring an end, a happy end to the story Dr Parvinder Singh Garcha

Mr Sharma: "I'm very shocked as I'm getting many local community people meeting me and talking to me about this matter, they are concerned.

"I'm also from the same Punjabi background and the local community is very close-knit... if it is part of human trafficking, then we must stop it.

"It is a worrying factor, not only for the society in general but particularly for the Punjabi community [that has no] history of this kind of child abandoning or child dumping."

Councillor Tejinder Singh Dhami said cases of children being abandoned is unheard of.

"Punjabi community or family wouldn't do anything like this," he said.

Gurrinder has a distinct mole on his left cheek

"But many adults do come here for a better life but somebody wouldn't leave their child."

Dr Parvinder Singh Garcha, a trustee of the gurdwara, said the speculations of trafficking are "absolutely not" helping Gurrinder.

"Everybody ought to be looking at the best interests of the child and helping," he said.

"As a faith organisation we will be saying prayers to hopefully bring an end, a happy end to the story."

Gurrinder, who is being looked after by social services, told police he had been in the country for up to three years and had been living with his uncle in a three-bedroom house.

He also said he and his uncle, described as a white man in his 30s, came to Southall on a "bendy-bus", believed to be the route 207.

Officers, who are still appealing his relatives to come forward, will speak to Gurrinder this week.