LONDON: The city of London in Ontario paid homage Saturday to a Pakistan-origin Muslim family deliberately mowed down by the driver of a pick-up truck, in an attack that has shocked Canada and which Prime Minister Justin Trudeau denounced as “terrorist.”
Four members of the Afzaal family — a man and his wife, their teenage daughter and his mother — were out for a walk in their London neighbourhood Sunday when a 20-year-old man in a black pickup truck drove into them on purpose, according to authorities.
A fifth family member, a nine-year-old boy, was seriously injured but is recovering.
On Saturday, hundreds of people filled a large parking lot and a football field next to the London Islamic centre, where a private ceremony was held, to join in a public remembrance around the family’s four caskets, each covered with a Canadian flag.
“The very fact that their coffins are draped in the beautiful Canadian flag is a testimony of the fact that the entire Canadian nation stands with them,” Pakistan’s ambassador to Canada, Raza Bashir Tarar, told the crowd.
The public ceremony, with brief remarks and prayers, was broadcast live on major Canadian networks.
“We are not alone in our grief,” one family member said, adding that messages of condolence and consolation had helped on the long path to healing.
The funeral cortege then headed to a cemetery — as people lined the route in a show of solidarity — for the private burial of Salman Afzaal, 46, his wife Madiha, 44, their daughter Yumna, 15 and Salman’s mother Talat, 74.
Many people wore either green ribbons, in support of the Muslim community, or mauve ones, Yumna’s favourite colour.
Numerous vigils and solemn commemorations have taken place across Canada in recent days, and on Friday several thousand people joined in an ecumenical walk through the streets of London, which is home to some 30,000 Muslims.
Many bore posters reading “We are all human” or “Hate kills.”
People also paid homage Friday in Quebec City, where a January 2017 mosque shooting claimed six lives.
The latest attack has fueled debate about the prevalence of Islamophobia in Canada and, within the Muslim community, has heightened fears that displaying outward signs of religious affiliation can make a person a target.
The imam Aarji Anwer, from the Islamic centre, told the CBC public network that he hoped the ceremony would help people grieve and bring some closure.
In a separate CBC interview, Prime Minister Imran Khan said the attack had shocked people across Pakistan.
He called on the international community to take action against “hate websites which create hatred amongst human beings.”
“The problem is, at the moment, there is not enough motivation and that some international leaders, or leaders in the Western countries, actually don’t understand this phenomenon,” he added.
CBC is airing the interview Sunday (today) but released excerpts early.
20-year-old Nathaniel Veltman, who has no criminal record and no known link to any militant group, has been charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one of attempted murder.
Police, who say the attack was planned and motivated by hatred, have not ruled out adding terrorism-related charges.
Trudeau has promised to step up the fight against extremist groups.
Following the attack, Canadian deputies adopted a nonbinding resolution, introduced by the left-leaning New Democratic Party, calling for a national summit on Islamophobia this summer.
Islamophobia…?!!? In this age of computers, cell phones ‘YouTube’, “Wikipedia”, etc. etc., some war monger illiterate lone individual or groups who, wrongly decides about the cultures and of existing three biggest religions due to his/her own weakness of comprehensions for any knowledge whatsoever including spreading of false doctrine by the equally ill informed or fanatics Churches, Synagogue or, Masajid’s Priests leading only to hatred or disrespect among other religions. A common trait in any society. One can find people of same religious groups having different values and ideas of their own thus having created dozens of ‘Sects’, Tribalism, Ethnicities etc. etc., each having their “Leaders, “Priests, “Imams.
Has anyone spent time to learn from any worldwide information systems, that “Islam’ combines and believe in all three great religions of the world that is: 1) “Judaism, (followers of Musa (Moses), & their book called ‘Gospel”.., 2) Followers of “Isa (Jesus) now called “Christians , and their book “Bible”.., 3) Islam, followers of “Ibrahim”(Abraham) including his descendent “Muhammad” ‘Mohammad”; their book called “Qur’an” testifying, the earlier two books with the same Prophets mentioned therein, and testifying of the same ‘Creator’ called ‘Jehovah’ in (Aramaic or Hebrew) and later called “Allah” in Arabic language. English title of ‘God’ followed hundreds of years later. English was nonexistence during the initial times of the Prophets.
…. Islamophobia; therefore, is not a correct label to attach to Muslim religion, since it believes and, comprise of all the three religions and same Creator mentioned in the three books of religions. “Allah”(God) in Islam is not new of different from other religions of “Ibrahim”(Abraham). SPREAD LOVE, RESPECT AND PEACE. NOT HATRED.