A Preston man has apologised for a hate-filled rant criticising ‘anyone who converts’ to Christianity.

Zaheer Hussain contacted us today and said he was ashamed of the content and asked for forgiveness.

Speaking today he said, “I am really sorry for the offence caused. I do not know what came over me when I said those things.

“This message was a private message between friends on WhatsApp. I did not share this video on Facebook or You Tube. I am not a serial blogger. I realise straight away actually that I made several obnoxious, crude comments that I should not have made.

“I realise now that my views can be very offensive not only to Christians but also to members of my own community. We hold the Prophet Isa in high regard too.

“I have always tried my best to be good to all people and I know some of you will not see it that way but I do ask for forgiveness.

“Forgiveness from all Christians.”

As a passenger in a car yesterday he filmed himself commenting on another video on social media which showed a Muslim man being baptised. This was shared extensively over the weekend and showed the man being baptised in a bath.

In what can only be described as vile and abrasive rant using reprehensible language he films himself swearing in English and Punjabi. He swears at ‘anyone who wants to convert’ to Christianity and threatens to sodomise anyone who does.

The driver who describes himself as Chaudrhy from Garmala (a village in Pakistan) does not add to the opinions of the passenger but neither does he speak up against the comments.

A complaint to Lancashire Telegraph and Asian Image read: “I am absolutely disgusted by the nature of the video that has gone viral on Facebook. As a Christian this has scared me.

It adds: “He is threatening to sexually assault those who may convert from Islam to Christianity and his abusive words towards my faith Christianity is quite frankly horrendous. To me he is displaying extremist tendencies and is encouraging violence.

“He must be spoken about this in the most-strongest of terms regarding his foul behaviour.”

Asif Mahmud, a community activist responded: “When I saw the video, I was outraged that someone thought it was acceptable to make such despicable comments.

“I firmly believe, one has the right to follow whichever faith they wish to.

“Just imagine the reaction from the Muslim community if similar comments had been made about a person converting to Islam.”

A Muslim resident of Preston told us, "It is reprehensible. It is langauge some of us had to put with 30 years ago and to hear it here like this will only make matters worse.

"A lot of people have done some wonderful work in promoting multi-faith understanding and this is so wrong."

Zaheer added, “I take all my comments back and I urge anyone who has the video to delete it as I am ashamed of it.

“I would like to urge other people in the community to think twice before saying anything that could cause offense to others.

“We might think it is a joke but clearly it is not. We would not like anyone speaking in such a way about Islam so we must learn not to talk badly about those of other religions or their followers.”