A 54-year-old man was charged with allegedly threatening to blow up a mosque and a Muslim family’s home in Newmarket, Ontario, amid growing concerns among Canada's Muslim community.
York Regional Police said they were alerted to a hate-motivated incident involving threats against the Muslim community, and at a Monday news conference, Steven Zhou of the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) alleged the suspect had planned to blow up a local mosque and a Muslim family’s home.
“The suspect is an HVAC expert. He allegedly said that he would use his expertise in that area to tamper with gas lines, to blow up his Muslim neighbour's home, to kill everyone inside and including, allegedly, the children,” Zhou said, noting that the man had been a neighbor of the targeted family for 14 years.
“The suspect had long befriended this Muslim family, but confided in another neighbour that he had allegedly planned to murder the Muslim family and to blow up the mosque,” he said. The other neighbor then alerted authorities.
According to Zhou, the suspect was also said to have engaged heavily with Islamophobic and anti-Muslim content on the internet.
