Sacked Coronation Street star Marc Anwar has apologised for his "racially offensive" tweets about Indian people, calling it a "moment of madness".

In a video he posted to YouTube, the Pakistan-born actor said the language he used about Indian people was "unacceptable", adding that he feels he has "let everyone down",

The 45-year-old, who played Sharif Nazir, was sacked from the ITV soap after bosses were alerted to his tweets.

The Sunday Mirror published screenshots of the alleged messages posted on Anwar's private Twitter account which appeared to hit out at India over Kashmir, referring to Indian people as "bastards" and "piss-drinking c***s".

ITV described the comments as shocking and said the actor would not be returning to the soap.

An ITV spokesman said: "We are deeply shocked by the entirely unacceptable, racially offensive comments made on Twitter by Marc Anwar.

"We have talked to Marc and, as a consequence of his comments, he will not be returning to Coronation Street with immediate effect."

Soap bosses are expected to do everything they can to minimise the actor's presence in the show until his character can be written out.