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Two young Pakistani men needed hospital treatment after being attacked by vigilante gangs hunting foreigners in Cologne in apparent revenge attacks for the mass sexual assaults on women on New Year’s Eve.

German police are investigating two separate incidents and looking into whether the thugs met up through Facebook after there were messages posted to organise a “manhunt”.

According to the Cologne Express newspaper, a group of “hooligans, rockers and bouncers” linked up on the social network site for payback for the mass sexual attacks, suspected to have been carried out mostly by asylum seekers and illegal migrants. Police said the first incident took place early yesterday evening when a group of about 20 men attacked six Pakistanis near the main station near the railway station where the New Year’s Eve attacks took place.

The two young Pakistani men needed hospital treatment. Police said it was a case of “serious bodily harm” with the attackers kicking, beating and verbally abusing their victims. Twenty minutes later another group attacked and injured a 39-year-old Syrian. More than 500 women have now come forward to report that they were attacked on December 31. At least 40 per cent said they were sexually assaulted, with many describing their attackers as men of Arab or North African origin.

Police have been conducting stop and searches and maintaining a visible presence on the streets of Cologne.

On Saturday police used water cannon and pepper spray against 1,000 far-right marchers who hurled bottles, stones and fireworks at them.

It was claimed today that the Syrian man shot dead by French police last week may have taken part in the sexual assaults in Cologne.

It was revealed in police files that Walid Salihi was arrested in 2014 in Cologne for sexually abusing women in a disco. He was reported to have groped and assaulted women.

Bild newspaper said that a former friend of his was arrested after the Cologne New Year’s Eve attacks, leading to suspicion that he may have been with him before travelling to France.

Salihi was shot dead as he approached a Paris police station last week wearing a fake suicide vest, on the first anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo massacre.

He had been living in an asylum home in Recklinghausen, Germany, where police found he used seven aliases.