A theatre company was today hunting for a new venue to allow a controversial play which was cancelled after violent protests from the Sikh community to carry on.

Officials at the Birmingham Stage Company said they would be prepared to stage the play, Behzti, after the Birmingham Repertory Theatre scrapped the production yesterday on safety grounds.

The play, which depicts scenes of rape and violence at a fictional Sikh temple, prompted violent disturbances on Saturday night in which three police officers were injured.

Stuart Rogers, the theatre's executive director, said the board had no option after Sikh community leaders could not give them assurances there would be no repeat of the violence.

Today Neal Foster, actor-manager of the Birmingham Stage Company, said he was looking to discuss the matter with officials from the Rep and other venues in the city with a view to staging the play.

He said: "The story cannot end here. I will be willing to produce the play in Birmingham. I think freedom of expression is more important than health and safety."

He claimed West Midlands Police were prepared to fulfil their responsibilities and protect the theatre for the remainder of the play’s run.

"I have full respect for the Sikh community. I did a production with them last year. I can fully understand their position.

"But that doesn’t entitle violence to be used to stop something being shown."

Any production of the play with his involvement would be carried out with full consultation with faith leaders and their right to protest and explain their position fully.

The protesters claim the black comedy, which has a cast of seven, demeans Sikhism. They asked for the setting to changed so that the action took place in a secular community centre rather than a temple, but the theatre refused.

Mohan Singh, from the Guru Nanak Gurdwara in south Birmingham, said today that he was relieved that the play had been cancelled.

Fiona Mactaggart, the minister for race equality at the Home Office, said it was entirely up to the theatre how it responded to protests. Both the theatre and the Sikh protesters had a right to free speech which should be respected, she said.

Ms Mactaggart denied that the legislation being introduced by the Government to outlaw incitement to hatred on grounds of religion would have an impact on the controversy.

Sikhs were already protected by legislation banning incitement to racial hatred, she pointed out. And she insisted that the new law did not extend the protection against blasphemy enjoyed by Christianity to cover other faiths.

Ms Mactaggart told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: "Art always offends someone, but that doesn’t mean it incites hatred of people.

"There’s nobody suggesting that this play would incite hatred of the Sikh community. It does, however, distress the Sikh community and they exercised their free speech right to protest.

"It’s a great thing that people care enough to make a protest. There are two bits of freedom of speech here. The free speech of the protesters is as important as the free speech of the artists.

"We will be looking at the policing implications of this event, because both of these groups have a right to free speech that it is right for them to be able to exercise."

Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, told the Today programme: "We have arrived at the worst possible outcome.

"Feelings of hurt and offence cannot be the reason for the silencing of the voice of a young playwright - a Sikh playwright, by the way, who wants to say something about her community and is as much a voice of Sikhism as any of the protesters.

"Ultimately, the real big losers in this type of situation are minorities because, if we allow people to be shouted down in this way, it is minorities whose voices will be lost."

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