Police state a man approached two Muslim people and shot them in the back of the head. The victims were Imam Maulama Akonjee, 55-years-old and his assistant Thara Uddin, 64-years-old.<\/p>\n
Although many label it a hate crime, police state there is no evidence yet that they were targeted because of their faith. A man was seen leaving the scene of the shooting which occurred in Ozone Park but no arrests have been made.<\/p>\n
The victims were walking from al-Furqan Jame mosque in the afternoon at local time.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe would not hurt a fly,\u201d Imam Akonjee’s nephew Rahi Majid informed the New York Daily News.<\/p>\n
“You would watch him come down the street and watch the peace he brings.”<\/p>\n
The said mosque caters largely to the Bangladeshi community in the area, Akonjee had moved from Bangladesh to New York two years ago according to reports.<\/p>\n
A large number of Muslims gathered together to mourn the loss of the two men chanting \u201cWe want justice\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe feel really insecure and unsafe in a moment like this,\u201d Millat Uddin told CBS New York.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really threatening to us, threatening to our future, threatening to our mobility in our neighbourhood, and we’re looking for the justice.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThese were two very beloved people. These were community leaders,\u201d Afaf Nasher, of the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said. \u201cThere is a deep sense of mourning and an overwhelming cry for justice to be served.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI understand the fear because I feel it myself. I understand the anger,\u201d said Sarah Sayeed, a member of New York mayor\u2019s staff who with Muslim communities. \u201cBut it’s very important to mount a thorough investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last year the New York Times reported that hate crimes against Muslims living in the US had tripled since the terror attacks in San Bernardino and Paris.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Police state a man approached two Muslim people and shot them in the back of the head. The victims were Imam Maulama Akonjee, 55-years-old and his assistant Thara Uddin, 64-years-old. Although many label it a hate crime, police state there is no evidence yet that they were targeted because of their faith. A man was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":16635,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}