After seeing a number of protests here in Manchester and around the world Manchester students came up with a novel way of responding to this provocation.

Together with former Lord Mayor, Afzal Khan, Councillor Abid Chohan and Councillor Shoukat Ali they went to busy Manchester Piccadilly Gardens and handed out over 1000 roses with simple the message ‘Prophet Mohammed teaches Love & Peace’.

After the anti-Islam film 'The Innocence of Muslims' sparked riots across parts of the Muslim world, US embassies were targeted and dozens of people lost their lives in the ensuing violent clashes.

Cllr Afzal khan said, “There is no absolute right to the freedom of expression. With freedom of speech comes responsibility too.

"How can you construct a civilised, cohesive multicultural society if we have individuals going around maliciously insulting others and spreading wrong and provocative materials.

"These young students have come up with an excellent positive way of spreading the true message of Prophet Mohammed to expel the wrong myths.”

The whole event was greatly appreciated by people, who took the roses and enquired more about the prophet’s teaching.

The students, Arslan Shafiq and Imran Zahoor, who had gathered other students and had come up with the message were delighted.

They said “Our aim was simply to tell people that we have to respect one another, we were delighted that we got such an overwhelming positive response to our initiative, we will now plan other such positive events to bring about better understanding in our society.”