Three men were injured after trying to subdue a man armed with a knife during afternoon prayers at a Montreal-area mosque Friday afternoon.
The incident happened at around 1:40 p.m. at the Centre Culturel Musulman in Châteauguay, an off-island suburb of Montreal.
Châteauguay police got a 911 call reporting that a man had entered the building on Saint Jean Baptiste Boulevard with a knife and then got into an altercation with people who were inside, said police spokesperson Nadia Grondin.
The three men are in their 50s and their injuries are not considered life-threatening. One of them was sent to hospital.
Police arrested the suspect, a 24-year-old man, who is set to be questioned by investigators.
Police officers are shown outside the Centre Culturel Musulman in Chateauguay, Que., Friday September 20, 2024. Three men have been injured after a 24-year-old man entered a mosque southwest of Montreal armed with a knife. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes
In a post on X, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressed expressed sympathies with the wounded men and the congregation, saying that he was “disturbed to learn that three people were injured in an attack.”
“No one should feel afraid in their place of worship,” Trudeau wrote.
Federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre also reacted to the incident.
“Canada’s places of faith should be where our people feel safe,” he said on X.
According to the mosque’s administrator, Rachid Amane, the suspect entered the building and started acting suspiciously.
There were roughly 100 men, women, and youth inside the place of worship at the time when prayers were stopped as several men approached the suspect.
The three men suffered injuries to their hands and one of them was wounded on his body when the armed man resisted them, Amane told CTV News. The man was detained until police arrived on scene.
In a statement on social media, the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) said it was “greatly concerned” by the incident.
“We are in touch with the local centre and will provide more information as it becomes available. However, we do not have information at this point to make a suggestion as to the motivation behind the incident, and we encourage our community not to speculate as the investigation continues,” the NCCM wrote on X.
Amane said this is not the first time there has been a violent incident at the mosque. Nearly a decade ago, a suspected handmade explosive device was left there but it did not go off.
The administrator said he wasn’t aware of any specific threats leading up to the incident on Friday and believes the suspect, who did not say anything threatening, was acting alone.
Amira Elghawaby, Canada’s Special Representative on Combatting Islamophobia, also reacted on social media, writing that the incident was “very distressing” and that she was waiting for more information about what happened.
With files from CTV Montreal’s Caroline Van Vlaardingen and The Canadian Press