18 July,2017 09:41 AM IST | London | Agencies
A mosque in the British city of Manchester has been severely damaged in a suspected arson attack, police said yesterday
A mosque in the British city of Manchester has been severely damaged in a suspected arson attack, police said on Monday. Five fire engines tackled the blaze at the Nasfat Manchester Islamic Centre on Droylsden Road in the northern England city and Greater Manchester Police (GMP) said they are treating Sunday's incident as "suspicious".
No one was present inside the centre during the incident. "The fire is being treated as suspicious and a joint investigation has been launched," a GMP statement said yesterday. Nasfat (Nasrul-Lahi-l-Fathi Society of Nigeria) opened up in Manchester as a mosque and Islamic centre in 2009 and it has about 300 members.
"It has been seriously damaged... the police will not let us in. We don't know why this happened. We try to be good neighbours and we try to be involved with our local community," said mosque spokesperson Shamusideen Oladimeji. Monsurat Adebanjo-Aremu, secretary of the centre, told Manchester Evening News that Sunday's fire was the third such major fire incident in a year. She said people have also urinated outside.
Suicide bomber kills 8 in Nigeria
A female suicide bomber killed eight people and wounded 18 on Monday at a mosque in an area regularly attacked by Boko Haram, police said. The woman detonated her bomb while trying to enter the mosque in the centre of Maiduguri, at around 4.30 am, shortly before early morning prayers.
