MACHETES, kitchen knives and meat cleavers are the weapons of choice for the Asian gang members fighting for control of the streets of Tower Hamlets in East London.

On Tuesday morning, three of the borough’s 27 gangs — 26 of them are Bangladeshi — fought a running battle from the gates of Tower Hamlets College to a nearby railway station. The clash put three in the Royal London Hospital.

Yesterday, police from Operation Ashworth, the unit dedicated to resolving the Asian gang problem that has turned parts of Tower Hamlets into a battleground, were on hand as 2,000 students left the college. “The gangs involved were the Poplar Massive Kru, the Shadwell Massive and the Bow Kru,” one officer said. “We are here to deter the retaliation which is inevitable as the victims lost blood and respect.”

Behind the violence lies a battle for turf, but the trigger on Tuesday was as simple as one gang member looking at another in the “wrong” way. Drugs play a part, but although 11 young Bangladeshi men were jailed last month on heroin-trafficking charges, gang fights are just as likely to be sparked by rows over girls.

Abdul Karim, a 19-year-old business student and a member of the Bow Kru, said he had hidden to escape the fighting. Abdul, who has lived in East London since he was seven, said the gangs had sprung up “to fight off the white racists who were attacking us. But there are so many Bangladeshis here now that the whites have moved away and we end up fighting each other.”

Kamel Hussein, 16, another business student, was a member of a smaller gang, the Burdett Estate Massive. “People will fight with anything to defend not only their territory, but their honour,” he said. “Even somebody smoking in front of the wrong person can be attacked. Life in this area is very tough for those who don’t know the rules.”

In a district once notorious for thuggery against Jews, the increase in Bangladeshi violence has added Islam to the poverty and unemployment. That has prompted the largest gang, the 250-strong Brick Lane Mafia, to single out white prostitutes for vicious harassment in the name of religion.

Shafiur Rahman, manager of a Bangladeshi drug rehabilitation project, says, however, that a wider return to Islamic values could help young Muslims to turn away from the drugs that have prompted one MP to dub Whitechapel “the heroin capital of Europe”.

He said: “Many young people still do not drink alcohol or eat pork. What many parents and young people are unaware of is that drugs are similarily prohibited in Islam.”

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