ANTI-MUSLIM BACKLASH FEARED IN LONDON ARSON
London, 1 Syaban 1434/10 June 2013 (MINA) – A fire at an Islamic boarding school in London late on Saturday night is being treated as suspicious, the police said, just days after a mosque was burnt down in another part of the British capital in a suspected arson attack.
In an incident likely to stoke fears that an anti-Muslim backlash is under way after the killing of a British soldier on a London street last month, police said they were investigating a fire at the Darul Uloom Islamic School in Chislehurst.
The Islamic School is about six miles (10 kilometers) from Woolwich, where an off-duty British soldier was butchered to death last month, allegedly by two extremists.
The killing inflamed tensions in the UK, which has seen a spike in anti-Muslim attacks since then.
Police who were called to the school just before midnight on Saturday said that two people were treated for smoke inhalation and the flames had caused minor damage to the building, the Saudi Gazette quoted by Mi’raj News Agency (MINA) as reporting.
Around 130 children and staff were inside the school at the time and had to be evacuated out of the boarding school founded in 1988, local media reported.
“Enquiries continue into the circumstances of the fire. At this early stage it is being treated as suspicious,” the police said in a statement on Sunday, saying they had made no arrests so far.
The London24 media reports, Sayed Mahmood, a spokesman, said the fire had been started by intruders and that the school was “deeply saddened” by the incident.
“Parents should rest assured that students are safe and have been well looked after,” Mahmood said.
The fire follows a suspected arson attack on an Islamic centre in north London last Wednesday. “EDL” was found scrawled on the side of that building.
EDL is the acronym for the English Defense League (EDL), a far-right group that has held several protests in London and elsewhere since the murder of soldier Lee Rigby last month.
But the EDL denied any involvement in the previous incident.
Met Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe said these were “difficult times for London’s communities”.
“The Met is now investigating suspicious fires at two locations within the Islamic community which have happened in the past few days. Fortunately no one has been hurt, but we know that fires can often prove fatal,” Howe said.
“So I want to reassure people that we are using our full range of policing tactics to protect sites that might be vulnerable. In all boroughs across London, there is an increased police presence around locations that might be at risk. We will maintain a 24/7 guard of uniformed officers,” he added. (T/P09/E1).
Mi’raj News Agency (MINA).
