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Four members of a Canadian Muslim family who were killed on Sunday when a pickup truck jumped the curb and ran them over were targeted in an anti-Islamic hate crime, Canadian police said on Monday, Trend reports citing Reuters.
“There is evidence that this was a planned, premeditated act, motivated by hate,” Detective Superintendent Paul Waight of the London, Ontario, police department told reporters.
“It is believed that these victims were targeted because they were Muslim,” Waight said.
Police arrested the suspected attacker, 20-year-old Nathaniel Veltman, on Sunday. His truck swerved off the road, over the curb, struck the family and then drove off at high speed, police said, citing witnesses.
Veltman, described as a London resident, has been charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder. He is due in back in court on Thursday after being remanded to custody on Monday.
Veltman does not have a criminal record, and is not known to be a member of a hate group, police said. He was arrested in a mall parking lot without incident while wearing a body-armor-type vest, police said. There is no evidence he had any accomplices.
Police have not yet released the victims’ names, but the London Free Press said that among the dead were Syed Afzaal, 46, his wife, Madiha Salman, 44, and their 15-year-old daughter, Yumnah Afzaal. Syed Afzaal’s 74-year-old mother, whose name is not yet confirmed, also died. Their 9-year-old son, Faez Afzaal, is in the hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries.
The attack was the worst against Canadian Muslims since a man gunned down six members of a Quebec City mosque in 2017. London Mayor Ed Holder said it was the worst mass murder his city – 200 km (120 miles) southwest of Toronto – had ever seen.
“We grieve for the family, three generations of whom are now deceased,” Holder told reporters. “This was an act of mass murder, perpetrated against Muslims, against Londoners, and rooted in unspeakable hatred.”
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Twitter that he was “horrified” by the news, adding that “Islamophobia has no place in any of our communities. This hate is insidious and despicable – and it must stop.”
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