Altab Ali

In 1989 a memorial was built at the scene of Altab Ali's murder, and in 1998 the park was renamed to Altab Ali Park. In 2015 it was announced that the borough of Tower Hamlets would host an annual Altab Ali Commemoration Day.

Altab Ali (Bengali: আলতাব আলী; 1953 – 4 May 1978) was a Bangladeshi textile worker stabbed to death in London, in a racially motivated killing. His death sparked widespread outrage and grassroots action that helped to reduce racism against British Bangladeshis and British Asians in the United Kingdom.

On 4 May 1978 Altab Ali was stabbed in what was then St Mary's Park. He was attacked by three teenagers: Roy Arnold and Carl Ludlow were both 17 years old, and another unnamed boy was 16 years old. He was dead on arrival at the Royal London Hospital. The BBC reported the murder as racially motivated and random.

Altab Ali moved from Bangladesh to London in 1969 with his uncle. In 1975 he returned to Bangladesh to be married. At the time of his death he was 25 and worked as a textile worker in an area off Brick Lane.

The East End of London had decades of racial tensions. In 1936 Oswald Mosley had planned a march against the then area's Jewish population. At the time the British Union of Fascists was stopped by more than 300,000 protestors - an event known as the Battle of Cable Street. Since this time there had been many racist incidents against the area's Asian community, and on the day of the murder the National Front had candidates standing in local elections.