By Cindi John BBC News Online community affairs reporter

The Sikh officers' group is not backing the boycott call

The National Black Police Association (NBPA) made the call in the wake of the collapse of talks about the reinstatement of a suspended senior officer, superintendent Ali Dizaei.

But the chairman of the Metropolitan Police Sikh Association (MPSA), Kashmira Singh Mann, called the tactic "short-sighted and counter-productive".

He said: "It could send a very confusing message to potential ethnic officers and set our cause back months if not years.

"The long-term strategy of the MPSA is to encourage more ethnic officers of all races to join the Metropolitan Police and bring about change from within and have strength in numbers."

I think the NBPA is blackmailing the Met police to do something which needs to be done by way of an inquiry Mahesh Nhanda, Met Police Hindu Association

Mahesh Nhanda of the Met police's Hindu Association also believed deterring ethnic minorities from joining was the wrong strategy.

"We already haven't got enough people from ethnic minorities in higher ranks and it'll be much worse in the future if people don't join.

"When it comes to community policing it'll cause problems there as well because the police service won't reflect the population," he said.

Superintendent Dizaei was suspended from his job two years ago amid allegations of corruption. But last month the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to proceed with the case against him.

Iranian-born Mr Dizaei had already been cleared in another trial of perverting the course of justice and misconduct over an accusation that he lied about damage to his BMW car.

'No divisions'

The NBPA has been calling for an inquiry into the Dizaei case but Mahesh Nhanda said the boycott call was "blackmail".

"I think the NBPA is blackmailing the Met police to do something which needs to be done by way of an inquiry.

"But the Met police are going to conduct an inquiry and we should wait for the outcome before making any comments," he said.

However, Mr Nhanda denied the NBPA's stance had caused a rift among the Met's ethnic minority associations.

"They don't wish to force other associations to go along with them. It hasn't caused divisions among associations, the only thing we don't agree with them on is their tactics regarding recruitment," he said.

The concerns of other minority police groups follow those expressed by the Met's Assistant Commissioner in charge of human resources, Bernard Howe.

The Met is currently trying to boost its proportion of ethnic minority officers to around 8% to reflect the make-up of the local community.

The increase was recommended by the 1999 Macpherson report into the Met's handling of the inquiry into the death of black teenager, Stephen Lawrence.

The report, which accused the Met of "institutional racism", said all police forces should have numbers of black and Asian officers equal to their presence in the local community.