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Photos: Hundreds Demand Justice After Imam And His Assistant Murdered
By
Scott Heins
Published Aug 14, 2016
Modified Aug 14, 2016
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Craig Ruttle / AP
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By
Scott Heins
Published Aug 14, 2016
Modified Aug 14, 2016
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[UPDATE BELOW] The NYPD is searching for the man who shot and killed two Muslim men in broad daylight yesterday in Queens. Maulama Akonjee, 55, and Thara Uddin, 64, had just finished praying at the Al-Furqan Jame Masjid mosque in Ozone Park when an unidentified gunman approached them from behind and shot them both in the head, police said.
Police found Akonjee and Uddin lying on the corner of 79th Street and Liberty Avenue just before 2 p.m. Saturday. They were rushed to Jamaica Hospital, where both men died of their injuries. Akonjee was an Imam leader at the mosque, and Uddin was his assistant.
Al-Furqan worshipper Misba Abdin, 47, told the Times that both men had been praying at the mosque just before they were shot. Witnesses told the Post that Akonjee and Uddin were neighbors and they lived nearby. The pair were murdered on their walk to their apartments on 102nd Avenue. Police say the shooter was last seen running from the area, still holding his gun and wearing a dark-colored polo and shorts. There is video that shows the suspect trailing the victims, though so far none of the actual shooting. The NYPD is working to obtain surveillance video from nearby businesses. No arrests have been made.
"This is 100 percent a hate crime," Akonjee's son-in-law Momin Ahmed told the Post. "My father-in-law was an imam, he wore traditional garb all the time." Both Akonjee and Uddin were Bangladeshi Muslims, and the surrounding Ozone Park neighborhood is home to many families from the South Asian nation.
In the hours after the shootings hundreds of worshippers and nearby residents gathered in the streets outside the Al-Furqan mosque, shouting demands for justice and denunciations of Islamophobia. "That's not what America is about," Khairul Islam told the Daily News. "We blame Donald Trump for this...Trump and his drama has created Islamophobia." Sources told the tabloid that Akonjee had had plans to return to Bangladesh later this month to attend his son's wedding.
"We are devastated," Kobir Chowdhury, president of another Ozone Park mosque told the News. "We need to get to the bottom of this. We need to know if they did this just because of our religion...[Akonjee was] a role model as an imam, as a father, as a community member. He didn't have any disputes with anybody." A police source told the News both the men had been carrying several hundred dollars at the time of their deaths, and that investigators have not ruled out the possibility of a botched robbery.
The NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating the murders, but police have been hesitant to declare a motive. "There's nothing in the preliminary investigation to indicate that they were targeted because of their faith," Deputy Investigator Hank Sautner said Saturday. Police have reportedly increased patrols at all mosques throughout New York, the Post notes.
"The perpetrator of these senseless killings must be swiftly apprehended and face the full force of the law," CAIR-NY Executive Director Afaf Nasher said yesterday. "We ask anyone with information about this attack to contact appropriate law enforcement authorities."
Anyone with information in regards to this incident is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime stoppers website at WWW.NYPDCRIMESTOPPERS.COM or by texting their tips to 274637 (CRIMES) then enter TIP577.
UPDATE: Surveillance video that shows the double murder has been recovered.
Tagged
fatal shooting
hate crime
HOMICIDE
islamophobia
Maulama Akonjee
queens
shooting
thara uddin
Scott Heins
Scott Heins is a freelance photo and video journalist based in New York City, and a frequent contributor to Gothamist + WNYC. His work often centers around labor rights, housing, and policing. In 2018-2019 he traveled to four states while covering a wave of public school teachers strikes, with work featured in The New York Times, The Intercept, Getty Images, Splinter, and Bloomberg Photos. Scott is a dues-paying member of the National Writers Union's Freelance Solidarity Project.
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