Mosques vandalised in US
The object was found to be “a plastic replica”.
Los Angeles: Two mosques have been vandalised with paint in the US state of California in the latest in a series of episodes of arson at Muslim houses of worship in the past few days, prompting the FBI to open a hate crimes investigation.
Worshippers who arrived on Sunday morning at the Islamic Center of Hawthorne found the words ‘Jesus is the way’ spray-painted on the building, said Christopher Port, a spokesman for the Hawthorne Police Department, CBS news reported.
The word “Jesus” was also spray-painted in white on an outer wall of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community Baitus-Salaam Mosque in Hawthorne, he said, adding that an object resembling a hand grenade was found in its driveway. The object was found to be “a plastic replica”.
The vandalism in Hawthorne came two days after a person was was arrested in nearby Riverside County and charged with arson, hate crime and burglary after the police said he set fire to a mosque, the Islamic Society of Coachella Valley.
The mosque is about 75 miles from San Bernardino, where a Pakistani-origin couple who federal officials say were inspired by IS opened fire on December 2 and killed 14 people.
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