Dr Jasbir Singh Puri looks nothing like Osama bin Laden, the man accused by the US of orchestrating last month's attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon in which thousands perished. But since the devastating terrorist strikes on September 11th, Dr Puri has been plagued with abuse from strangers shouting "Osama bin Laden", "Taliban" or "terrorist" at him.

The Indian-born consultant, who has lived in Ireland with his family for 13 years, believes he has been targeted because, as a member of the Sikh religion, he wears a distinctive dark turban. The headdress vaguely resembles that worn by Afghanis, including bin Laden's allies, the Muslim country's ruling Taliban.

The fact that Dr Puri is not even of the same religion as the Saudi fugitive bin Laden is undoubtedly a distinction lost on his hecklers. It was probably also lost on the murderer of a Sikh man mistaken for a Muslim who was gunned down in Arizona, in the US recently.

Dr Puri is clearly troubled by the sudden hostility he and other members of his 600-strong Sikh community in Ireland are facing.

Seated in the living room of his home in Lucan, Co Dublin, he twirls his steel bangle - one of the five prescribed physical articles of his faith - as he reams off incident after disturbing incident.

There is the male teenage student who was struck with a bottle outside the Royal Dublin Society in Ballsbridge, and the male computer professional assaulted and accused of being an Afghani twice in the same day in the city.

Then there are his personal accounts of being stoned while travelling in a car with several other Sikh men on Dublin's Pearse Street, and the more recent incident in the foyer of a hotel in Drogheda, Co Louth, when a group of men in their 20s roared "Osama bin Laden" at him.

He knows that such behaviour is born largely of ignorance, but this does not placate his worries that a "serious mishap" is waiting to happen.

He says: "In America when the Oklahoma bomb occurred it was planted by a white American. Americans didn't label any white guy a terrorist. They caught that man [Timothy McVeigh, who has since been executed]. Not everybody living in the North is a member of the IRA or a loyalist".

A Government advisory body which monitors racist incidents has documented a surge in racist assaults and abuse in Ireland in the wake of the US attacks.

The National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism (NCCRI) says about one in five incidents reported to it since September 11th have related to the terrorist strike. It will release these findings, as well as other information, next month.

The range of reported victims documented by the NCCRI suggests that people of Asian or Middle Eastern origin are the primary targets. There have been attacks on and verbal abuse of women and men wearing distinctive Islamic dress, as well as members of the Sikh community.

Even a woman of Japanese origin visiting Dublin reported being slapped in the face and accused of involvement in the US attack.

"This is of deep concern. It shows that the whole issue of reprisals against the Islamic community is wider than we thought," says Philip Watt, the NCCRI's director. "It may be a relatively new form of racism here, but Islamaphobia certainly has to be reckoned with, through new and major anti-racism initiatives such as the National Anti-Racism Awareness Programme."

The three-year £4.5 million programme was publicly launched last week by the Taoiseach, the Tβnaiste and the Minister for Justice. During a recent visit to the Islamic Cultural Centre in Clonskeagh, Co Dublin, Bertie Ahern stressed the "positive and welcome" contribution to society of Ireland's 15,000 Muslims.

In the audience for the Taoiseach's visit to the centre that day were members of the Muslim National School in Clonskeagh, who had to be evacuated from the premises during a hoax bomb alert within days of the terrorist attacks.

"The first three weeks we were terrified," says Fazil Ryklies from the Islamic Foundation of Ireland in Dublin. "We even gave out flyers at the mosque telling people to report any incidents to the police and to us and telling them that if someone bangs on their door not to get involved in a confrontation."

While things have quietened somewhat, Ryklies says the foundation is still receiving abusive phone calls and letters.

"They say things like: 'Get out of our country. You people are merciless and uncivilised'. Before I can say anything, the phone gets banged down. It's very frustrating that we are being blamed."

But not all the reaction has been negative, he adds. "Eighty per cent of the calls we've received are very good and supportive. After a recent article in The Irish Times about Muslims in Ireland, we have had more than 200 requests for copies of the Koran in English. That's very positive, because people want to know what Islam is about."

Meat trader Muhammad Javied Iqbal says there have not been any incidents in Ballyhaunis, Co Mayo, where some 100 Muslims mainly from Syria and Pakistan work largely in the town's halal meat plant.

He believes that good relations between the minority community and Irish people in the town have helped keep tensions at bay. "Relations are good here, and all of our people have condemned the attack. We feel it shouldn't have happened and it's sad," he said.

South African-born Ryklies, who has lived in Ireland for 27 years, blames elements of the international and domestic media for contributing to the current hostile climate in Dublin by portraying Muslims as fanatics and terrorists. He points to a recent headline in the Irish Mirror which read: "Mad driver wearing a Muslim cap smiles as he mows down shoppers".

The story related to an incident earlier this month when a Nigerian failed asylum-seeker drove a car at high speed down Henry Street, injuring 10 people.

Within minutes of the incident, shocked shoppers and traders in the increasingly multi-cultural quarter were speculating that it was connected to the US attacks.

They feared terror had come to their city and flailed around for a motive. The driver was instantly cast as a Muslim, purely because he was wearing a hat. It emerged later that he was a Christian.

On the day of the Henry Street incident, Ryklies was only too aware of the potential for backlash had the rumours been true. He says: "I went home that night and said to my wife, 'I just hope that wasn't a Muslim person because I'm just sick and tired of having to keep defending Islam'."

Watt advocates the strengthening of existing public order laws to introduce harsher penalties for verbal abuse which has a racist content.

All three men stress the need for intercultural education, both formal and informal, to counter the demonisation of the Muslim community.

"The eyes don't see what the mind doesn't know," says Dr Puri. "We all have good points and people should see what others are, not who they are."