She won several Asian media awards and was appointed MBE, while the show was shortlisted as Best Radio Entertainment alongside Goodness Gracious Me. It had featured interviews with, among others, Mother Teresa and the Dalai Lama.But Mrs Jasani, of Penarth, said she was belittled and told that the BBC was not in the business of running an Asian channel for a programme that had an audience of only 2,000. A murder inquiry was launched yesterday after two policemen were killed as they tried to stop a van being chased along a dual carriageway by fellow officers. The crash happened on the A42 near Worthington, north of Leicester, just after 1.45am as the police officers tried to halt the van with a spiked device which bursts a vehicle’s tyres.The patrolmen from Leicestershire police are believed to have been preparing to lay the disabling stick across the road.

The police car burst into flames and the van skidded on to its side. The van driver, a 38-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of murder and causing death by dangerous driving.The van had failed to stop in Shirley, near Solihull, West Midlands, about half-an-hour earlier, police said. West Midlands Police chased the van from near a Tesco supermarket on Stratford Road and it is believed to have passed through Warwickshire before heading north on the A42 into Leicestershire. The independent Police Complaints Authority is to oversee an inquiry.The authority published a report last month highlighting the dangers of police chases and called for changes to help cut the death toll from road crashes and accidents.The northbound carriageway of the A42 remained closed yesterday while detectives examined the crash site and the damaged vehicles.

The van was on the hard shoulder of the dual carriageway lying on its driver’s door side Its front window and bonnet were crumpled. The charred remains of the wrecked police patrol car lay alongside a large dent in the central barrier.Sergeant Chris Brown of Leicestershire Constabulary’s road policing unit said: “We have got collision investigators at the scene who will be here for most of the day We are appealing for any witnesses to the incident. Fatal accidents are always difficult to deal with but it makes it even more tragic when it is colleagues involved and we are arranging for counselling from our welfare department for officers involved.”The deaths follow those of PC John Odell, of Kent police, and PC Alison Armitage, of the Greater Manchester force, who were also killed on duty. PC Odell, 30, was hit by a car as he carried out roadside speed checks in Margate in December 2000. A 25-year-old man was jailed for nine years for manslaughter. PC Armitage was killed by a car thief in Oldham who drove over her repeatedly as he tried to escape.