A 19-year-old Cambridge University student has been moved to a safe house after causing “widespread distress” by printing offensive material in a college magazine.

The second-year maths and physics student faces being sent down after publishing a cropped copy of the cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad and offensive comments in last week’s edition of Clareification, a student flysheet distributed within Clare College.

The cartoon, first published by the Danish newspaper Jyllandsposten in 2005, prompted protests from Muslims world-wide last year and led to at least four deaths. It has been printed only three times in Britain.

The offending edition of Clareification, a satirical weekly, first came to the university’s attention on Tuesday, after complaints by Muslims and nonMuslims about the back page, which, under the title “lookalikes of the week”, featured a cartoon of Muhammad next to a picture of the president of the Union of Clare Students.

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According to Cambridge’s Varsity magazine, the caption for Muhammad bore the president’s name and vice-versa. A further comment was added, indicating that one was a “violent paedophile” and the other “a prophet of God, a great leader and example to us all”. A separate article likened the reaction to the original cartoons with the outrage at last year’s speech by the Pope at Regensburg.

Patricia Fara, Clare College’s senior tutor, apologised yesterday. She said: “The college finds the publication and the views expressed abhorrent. Reflecting the gravity of the situation, the college immediately began an investigation and disciplinary procedures are in train.”

The Union of Clare Students also apologised, saying that the material did not reflect the views of Clare students.

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