Five still held in Shakilus inquiry

Two men, aged 22 and 18, two teenage boys, aged 16 and 17, and a 16-year-old girl are being held at south London police stations in connection with the teenager's death.

With 14 non-fatal knife attacks during the past weekend alone, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith is reported to be considering forcing doctors to notify stabbing injuries to the authorities - as gunshot wounds are - to allow police to gather information about incidents that might go unreported.

But policing minister Tony McNulty said that carrying knives is getting into teenagers' "collective DNA".

Calling for tougher sentences for those caught carrying blades, he said: "I'm afraid this is apparently a generational, almost cultural thing that's getting in the collective DNA."

Shakilus, 16, was beaten with a baseball bat and stabbed in an attack in Thornton Heath, south London, on Thursday.

He died the next day.

One line of inquiry detectives are following is that the attack was sparked by a row over a girl.

A vigil for another of the capital's teenage knife victims, Ben Kinsella, was held on Sunday one week after his death.

Hundreds of friends gathered in North Road, Islington, around 2am, laying candles and lanterns around the floral tributes that have been left at the scene.