Action call after youth's murder

Amar Aslam was found dead with head injuries

An MP has called for tougher action against violent youths after a teenager was killed in a park in West Yorkshire.

Dewsbury MP Shahid Malik said harsher sentencing was needed as well as help from parents and communities to show that "violence was not acceptable".

He spoke out after Amar Aslam, 17, died in what police called a "sustained" attack in Crow Nest Park in Dewsbury on Sunday evening.

A 20-year-old man and four youths aged from 12 to 15 have been arrested.

Police are looking into suggestions the death was linked to a gang fight.

Mr Malik said the attack was unlikely to have been race-related as the three arrested youths were all Asian, as was the victim.

Parents need to be more alert and take a far greater responsibility for their children Shahid Malik

The MP said: "We often band together these terrible attacks as being racially motivated when the reality is that ultimately, they are just about young people.

"More often than not it is not about race, it is about young people who have got involved in a culture where they feel violence is acceptable, either as as an offence or in defence.

"We have to get the message across that violence is not acceptable either way.

"At the moment I do not think the law is being applied as it might; I do not think harsh enough sentences are being imposed."

'Many tears'

But he said there was also a "real role for parents and for the wider community to play".

"Parents need to be more alert and take a far greater responsibility for their children - their whereabouts, and what they carry with them when they go out.

Part of the park remains cordoned off for police work

"And the community has a responsibility to work more closely with the police."

Local councillor Karam Hussain went to Amar's family home to offer his condolences.

He said: "There were many relatives in the house and there were many tears, from them and from me.

"I know his father very well. The whole family was devastated, just as anyone would be as a young man's life was lost."

Fellow Dewsbury West ward councillor Mumtaz Hussain said Amar came from a family who were not the "kind of people" to get into trouble.

Witnesses wanted

Amar's father and brother were waiting for a flight home from Pakistan after hearing the news last night, he added.

West Yorkshire Police said they wanted to speak to anyone who was in the park between 1400 and 2000 BST on Sunday, to establish a "clearer picture".

Amar had been dressed in white tracksuit bottoms and a white Bench top.

The area where his body was found had recently been transformed into a wildlife garden.

Police have now reopened part of Crow Nest Park, while officers continue to investigate areas close to where the boy's body was found.

The park, which opened to the public in 1893, contains an ornamental lake, museum, terraced walks, a woodland garden, and promenades.