The house of a Guyanese family was one of five buildings attacked by a suspected serial firebomber in New York on Sunday night.
The New York Times yesterday said that the police are investigating the firebombings as possible cases of bias attacks. It is believed that Muslims were being targeted and a sketch of the attacker has been made.
The NYT reported that in Elmont, New York Bejai Rai and his wife were getting ready for bed in their home on Glafil Street around 9:40 pm when they heard a loud crash. Rai told the NYT it was “as if the chandelier had fallen down.” One of their sons watched as a man rushed away and into a two-door car.
Rai said it appeared that the bottle had bounced off the house and crashed on the walkway without setting anything alight.
“We are terribly nervous,” said Rai, a Hindu from Guyana. He told the newspaper “If they’re going to bomb a house, to burn a house down, they want to kill us. Why would someone want to do that to us?”
The report said that in relation to the other attacks, around 10 p.m. Sunday a man in a hooded sweatshirt drove up to a home on 170th Street in Jamaica, Queens, and stepped out holding a glass bottle.
According to the NYT “Slowly and deliberately, the man threw the bottle – transformed into a Molotov cocktail by the addition of flammable liquid and a wick – toward the bay window of the home, which houses a small Hindu temple.
“Ramesh Maharaj, 62, a Hindu priest who lives in the house, rushed from his bed to the lawn and found the bottle burning harmlessly.
“It smelled like kerosene,” said Mr. Maharaj. “The intention from the behaviour of the guy was to do destruction.”
The New York police said that this small temple was one of four sites firebombed in Jamaica on Sunday night. No injuries were reported. The report said that the police are investigating the firebombings as possible bias attacks. A security camera captured the attack on the temple.
The NYT said that in three of the four attacks, Starbucks Frappucino bottles were used.
One firebombing happened at an Islamic centre where about 100 people were worshiping, and another at a bodega owned by a Muslim immigrant from Yemen, the NYT said. At the fourth site, a house on 107th Avenue, the residents said that they were Christians and that they were puzzled by the assault. The fifth site was the Elmont home just across the Nassau County border.
The NYT said that no arrests were made as of last night.
The Queens attacks, according to the report, occurred in one of the more diverse stretches of the city’s most cosmopolitan borough. It said that the two main thoroughfares are dotted with halal shops, Latino restaurants, Hindu temples and Christian churches. It said that once predominantly black, the neighbourhood has had influxes of immigrants from many parts of the world, including Guyana, the rest of the West Indies, Central America, South Asia, and Arabic-speaking lands.
“Everyone gets along, no problems,” said Salem Ahmed, 38, the owner of the bodega, on Hillside Avenue and 180th Street, that was attacked at about 8 p.m.
Ahmed said a man ran into the store and threw a flaming bottle over the deli counter at the small 24-hour grocery store, which he opened soon after arriving from Yemen 20 years ago.
The bottle fell to the floor without breaking and caused a small fire which was quickly put out.
The NYT said that in the attack on the Al-Khoei Islamic Center, along the Van Wyck Expressway, two lit bottles were lobbed at the entrance, causing a small blaze shortly before 9 p.m.
Imam Maan Al-Sahlani, an Iraqi immigrant, told the NYT that a service had just ended when the attack took place. There was little damage, he said, but the attack caused concern among some members that Muslims might have been targeted.
“You really can’t accuse one religion or a party without knowing more about it,” he added.
The imam told the NYT he had heard about the attack on the Hindu temple, and added, “Some people confuse Hindus and Muslims.” The police had promised protection for the Islamic center, and the stepped-up security had reassured its members, the NYT added.
The report said that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo asked the State Police to help with the investigation, and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said, “No matter what the motivation was of the individual who threw Molotov cocktails in Queens last night, his actions stand in stark contrast to the New York City of today that we’ve built together.”
Maharaj, who operates the Hindu temple, told the NYT on Monday that he had not slept, but that he would conduct his usual prayer service that night.
According to the Associated Press, with New York Police cruisers parked outside and yellow police tape fluttering, Al-Sahlani met yesterday with a dozen other clerics from the city’s Muslim community. A news conference was planned for today.
AP said that near a blackened spot on the concrete overhang of the Islamic foundation’s main entrance, the front gates remained open to the street on Monday, and anyone could walk in to worship.
“This is America, and we must continue to love one another,” Al-Sahlani, standing in flowing ritual robes in the main prayer hall, said with a smile.
“We were very surprised,” Al-Sahlani said. “This has never happened here before.”
The decades-old foundation is among the foremost Muslim institutions in New York, with branches around the world. Named for one of the most influential Shiite scholars, it promotes work in development, human rights and minority rights as a general consultant to the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations, AP said.
The sprawling complex has two minarets rising over an expressway that leads to the John F. Kennedy International Airport. Visitors over the years have included Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and various New York mayors and international diplomats, Al-Sahlani told AP.
Besides a prayer hall, library, kitchen and other facilities, the center has a full, accredited school that resumes today after holiday break. Some parents were concerned about the attack, the imam told AP.
