A 26-year-old man is in police custody and may face hate crime charges after an Ontario St. mosque was vandalized early Tuesday.
The incident occurred at about 3:40 a.m. Police received a 911 call that an individual was damaging the Tawuba mosque’s front door. Police found broken windows at the front and side of the mosque.
Using a description provided by witnesses, police quickly arrested a suspect who is now being held at a detention centre.
The damage to the mosque, which is little more than a boutique-sized prayer room, scattered shards of glass across its floor and saw garbage from the street tossed through the shattered door.
“I’m surprised by this,” said Mohammad Nurul Islam, who was among the 10 or so worshippers who came to the mosque for morning prayers. “Nothing like should happen to any place (of worship). Buddhist, Hindu, any place of religion should be respected…I am a little bit worried. That garbage is from off the street. I just hope no one was trying to start a fire”
Islam noted that Tuesday morning’s vandalism wasn’t the first time the mosque had been targeted. He said a two or three years ago someone had tried to light a fire in the alleyway alongside the building, while in a separate incident, a window on the street side of the mosque had been hit hard enough to be cracked.
Shah Mohammad Alam said he came to mosque to find police on the scene and was told they’d made an arrest.
“We pray that this kind of thing doesn’t happen anywhere in the world.”
This incident follows a similar on Feb.2, when the Khadijah mosque in the city’s Pointe Saint Charles district was hit by vandalism.
A 50-year-old man has pleaded not guilty to one count of public mischief and is currently undergoing a psychiatric examination.
A mosque on Ontario St. in Montreal was vandalized in the early morning hours of Feb. 21, 2017.
A mosque on Ontario St. in Montreal was vandalized in the early morning hours of Feb. 21, 2017.
