An imam and a man believed to be his assistant were shot and killed Saturday on a busy street in New York City, according to local police.
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Two Muslim men were murdered on their way home after they prayed at a mosque in Queens.
Police said 55-year-old Imam Maulama Akonjee and his 64-year-old associate, Thara Uddin, were shot in the back of the head as they left the Al-Furqan Jame Masjid mosque in the Ozone Park section of Queens shortly before 2 p.m.
Both men were later pronounced dead, an administrator at Jamaica Hospital said.
The shooting comes amid a climate of growing Islamophobia and anti-Muslim sentiment as a series of deadly attacks have unfolded in the United States and overseas, some of which have been claimed by the Islamic State group, and Republican presidential contender Donald Trump’s proposal to ban Muslims from entering the US.
Sautner said video surveillance shows the victims were approached from behind by a man in a dark polo shirt and shorts who shot them and then fled with the gun still in his hand.
One of them was killed and the second was gravely wounded, but Phillips declined to provide any more information about their identities.
People at the scene said they considered the crime a “hate crime”, but police denied that, initially, although they didn’t provide a motive.
The motive for Saturday’s shooting was not immediately known and no evidence has been uncovered so far that the two men were targeted due to their faith, said Tiffany Phillips, a spokeswoman for the New York City Police Department.
But Sarah Sayeed of the NY mayor’s office insisted that “the NYPD is looking at all angles of this crime, including the hate crime (angle)”.
The New York Chapter of Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organisation Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said it has reported an unprecedented spike in anti-Muslim incidents nationwide since Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump’s “bigoted call for a complete ban on Muslims entering the United States”.
She said: “We are committed to a full investigation of any crime against any individual and we want you to know that the NYPD is looking at all angles”.
“So every single one of us shares in this responsibility”.
US Representative Nydia Velazquez said in a tweet that she was “horrified” by the shooting.
But police were not ruling out any possibility, she added.
Scores of people gathered at the shooting site are chanting “We want justice!”
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This post was syndicated from The Guardian NigeriaThe Guardian Nigeria.
