But on Sunday, neighbors who gathered on the quiet residential street where the men lived in the Ozone Park neighborhood of Queens said they just didn’t believe that could be the case.
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– The search is on for the man who gunned down a New York City imam and his assistant outside a mosque.
This undated sketch provided by the New York City Police Department on Sunday, Aug. 14, 2016, shows a suspect believed to have shot the leader of a mosque and a friend in New York.
New York City police Sunday were investigating the fatal shooting over the weekend of an imam and a friend shortly after they left an afternoon prayer service at a mosque. But police said there is no evidence so far to support that.
Imam Maulama Akonjee, 55, and his assistant, 64-year-old Thara Uddin, were shot at point-blank range just before 2 pm on Saturday in the Ozone Park neighborhood in the borough of Queens, police said.
Following the attack, angry men gathered before local media to proclaim the incident a hate crime.
Worshipper Millat Uddin said Mr Akonjee led the mosque for about two years and was a very pious man.
A lot of neighbors said, Hey, dont take your kid with you, he said. “You can’t go up to a person and shoot them in the head and not be motivated by hatred”.
On Sunday, police released a sketch of a suspect with dark hair, a beard and glasses.
Sautner described the alleged shooter as a man with medium complexion wearing a dark polo shirt and shorts.
Surveillance video obtained by NBC 4 NY shows the moment the two men were gunned down on an Ozone Park street. No arrests had been made by Sunday afternoon.
Police have said there is no evidence that the men were killed due to their faith, but some mosque-goers said the shooting was a hate crime.
The imam is said to have been carrying around a thousand dollars in cash at the time, but police say the money wasn’t taken. Akonjee was described as a peaceful man. “We need to get to the bottom of this”. Khan said there needs to be more police officers patrolling the area. Police said the man was armed, but it wasn’t clear whether he was pointing the gun or aiming it at officers.
An unidentified man addressing the rally singled out Republican nominee Donald Trump and his adviser, Rudy Giuliani, under whose former mayorship of New York Muslims were heavily monitored.
“This neighbourhood is getting insane because of this election and Trump”.
“It makes all the Muslims scared”, he said.
Trump’s campaign said in a statement that it was “highly irresponsible” to blame a political candidate for the violent attacks.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio was closely monitoring the shooting investigation, a spokesman for the mayor said in a statement, and assured the public “the NYPD will stop at nothing to ensure justice is served”.
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The country’s State Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mohammed Shahriar Alam, called the shooting a “cowardly act on peace-loving people”.
