Dr Nasser Kurdy, a consultant surgeon, was attacked outside the Altrincham and Hale Muslim Association at about 17:50 BST on Sunday evening and was taken to hospital.<\/p>\n
The 58-year-old has since been discharged from hospital, according to his colleague Dr Khalid Anis, a spokesman for the Altrincham & Hale Muslim Association, who said he was “very lucky”.<\/p>\n
A 54-year-old man and a 32-year-old who were arrested are being questioned.<\/p>\n
Assistant Chief Constable Russ Jackson said, “This is a very nasty and unprovoked attack against a much-loved local man.”<\/p>\n
Community sources said Dr Kurdy heard Islamophobic comments at the time of the attack.<\/p>\n
Police said Dr Kurdy was on his way to the mosque, where he is the vice-chairman and has led prayers, when he saw another man across the road.<\/p>\n
“A short time later he felt an injury to the back of his neck. He ran into the centre and then called emergency services.”<\/p>\n
Dr Anis said in a statement, “It could have been very, very serious.<\/p>\n
“He [Dr Kurdy] said he noticed someone cross the road and then somebody just attacked him from behind.<\/p>\n
“Obviously he was in shock at the time, he had just been stabbed, so the detail of those comments I don’t know – but there were definitely abusive comments made by the attackers at the door of the mosque.<\/p>\n
“We understand it was a knife, he is very lucky.<\/p>\n
“It’s not just a criminal act against the Muslim community or one individual, it’s the people living in Altrincham, I think we all feel that.<\/p>\n
“The fact they attacked an orthopaedic consultant who devoted his life to helping others is really quite poignant.”<\/p>\n
“It’s a very unified town so for this to happen like this in the street, it is frightening.”<\/p>\n
“We are shocked to hear of the stabbing of a prominent Muslim surgeon outside Altrincham Mosque today in what the Greater Manchester Police have described as a hate crime,\u201d said Harun Khan, secretary general of the MCB.<\/p>\n
“We are relieved to hear that the victim’s injuries are not currently critical.<\/p>\n
“Our prayers are with the victim, his family and the local community.”<\/p>\n
Mohammed Shafiq, chief executive of the Ramadhan Foundation, tweeted, “I strongly condemn the stabbing of the Imam of the Altrincham mosque earlier today.<\/p>\n
“The Imam is recovering and an arrest has been made.”<\/p>\n
ACC Jackson said, “People will want to know why the attacker did this and we are treating this as a crime motivated by hate.<\/p>\n
“It is difficult to say more than this at this time but there is nothing to suggest that this is terrorist related.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In a suspected hate crime, a doctor has been stabbed in the back of the neck on his way to a mosque in Greater Manchester. Dr Nasser Kurdy, a consultant surgeon, was attacked outside the Altrincham and Hale Muslim Association at about 17:50 BST on Sunday evening and was taken to hospital. The 58-year-old has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101,"featured_media":24186,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24184","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\/101"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24184\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}