Three London mosques receive handwritten death threats
All the three threat notes bear the same handwriting and a postmark from Sheffield.
LONDON (Web Desk) - At least three London mosques received handwritten death threats from unidentified men leaving the people in fear and panic, reported Evening Standard.
Counter-terrorism police has launched a probe into the incident after reviewing the letters sent to the Forest Gate mosque, the Coventry Cross mosque in Bromley-by-Bow and the Ramadan mosque in Dalston. All the three threat notes bear the same hand writing and a postmark from Sheffield.
The Forest Gate mosque is located in Romford Road, east London and also contains a primary school. It got a letter signed with initials M and S and had white powder with it. The letter read, “An explosive device is to be left at your mosque very soon.”
A search was conducted by forensic officers while the children were kept locked in their classrooms. Tahir Talati, the imam, said, “The nature of the threat means we have to take it very seriously.
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“Because we are a primary school we have to do everything we can to safeguard our pupils so we will be taking it very seriously. But in Newham we have the most diverse community in the country and we are not going to allow this to divide us.”
Primary school manager Shah Muhammed, who opened the letter, added: “The world has gone crazy, it was a white powder posted from Sheffield. There were kids around in the day, it is dangerous to do this to scare them.
“They were kept in their classes and didn’t realise something happened until they saw the police when their parents came to pick them up. The person who did this needs to be found quickly.”
A similar threat note was sent to Coventry Cross mosque in Tower Hamlets, reading, “I will be visiting your mosque and home very soon."
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Ramadan mosque went under the same situation when it received the letter saying, ““I am coming to your Mosque in August to make you vermin pay.”
“I was in total shock, it was a very clear threat. Now we worry that Muslim men, women and children could be plowed into and thrown in the air by a lorry driving into them or anything, it’s terrifying. It’s clear these people are programmed for hate. We now feel constantly under threat,” said 52-year-old leader of the mosque Erkin Guney.
His sister Zerin said: “We are living in fear, we don’t know if they are going to throw a bomb through the window. The door used to be open all the time for everyone but with the threat we have to be on alert all the time.”
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The mosque is situated only a few miles away from the Muslim Welfare House in Finsbury Park where a van rammed into a group of Muslims in Ramazan this year and injured 10 people. One man also died at the scene after falling ill for unrelated reasons just before the attacker struck.
A spokeswoman for the North-East Counter-terrorism Unit confirmed said: “Specialist officers attended these addresses and the contents of the packages were examined. In all cases, the substances were found not to be noxious or harmful. These incidents are now subject to an investigation coordinated by the north east counter terrorism unit with ongoing enquiries to identify the origin.”
“We are looking into the possibility that the communications are linked to a number of suspicious packages and malicious communications reported at locations in London, south Yorkshire and America and are part of an ongoing investigation.”
