While the Waa­ji­hat­ul Is­laamiyyah (The Is­lam­ic Front) wants po­lice pro­tec­tion at all lo­cal mosques, the An­ju­man Sun­nat ul Ja­maat (AS­JA) says this is not nec­es­sary.

Speak­ing at a press con­fer­ence at the Ma­coon Street Masjid in San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day, Imam Raf­fa­ic Mo­hammed con­demned yes­ter­day’s mass shoot­ings of Mus­lims at Al Noor Mosque and Lin­wood Mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, which left 49 dead and many oth­ers wound­ed.

“The en­tire Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty and the AS­JA fam­i­ly ex­tends our heart­felt sym­pa­thies and con­do­lences to the fam­i­lies of all those who lost their loved ones in this vi­o­lent sa­tan­ic act,” Mo­hammed said.

Say­ing Mus­lims in T&T lived peace­ful­ly and in har­mo­ny with oth­er re­li­gions and races, Mo­hammed said they had no fear of sim­i­lar at­tacks in T&T.

AS­JA gen­er­al sec­re­tary Rahi­mool Ho­sein al­so agreed there was no need to set up ad­di­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty at mosques.

“We are a cos­mopoli­tan na­tion and we live with every­one in har­mo­ny. There is no need to set up se­cu­ri­ty.

“Our gov­ern­ment has prop­er se­cu­ri­ty,” he added.

Com­ment­ing on a de­ci­sion by US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump to place po­lice in every mosque in the Unit­ed States, Ho­sein said, “He is do­ing that not to pro­tect peo­ple who go there but to know what the Mus­lims are do­ing. We won’t be com­fort­able hav­ing a po­lice of­fi­cer look­ing over (us). The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice is do­ing a good job and so far we have the con­fi­dence that we will be pro­tect­ed.”

How­ev­er, he said this did not in­su­late T&T Mus­lims from at­tacks, not­ing that New Zealand was a non-vi­o­lent coun­try yet the mass shoot­ing oc­curred.

Spir­i­tu­al guide of AS­JA Mo­hammed As­rarul Haque said while peo­ple in T&T lived in har­mo­ny and tol­er­ance, one nev­er knew what might oc­cur in the fu­ture.

“All re­li­gious lead­ers should meet and ad­dress the na­tion be­cause we don’t know what youths have in their minds and this might help in the fu­ture to pro­tect our lives,” Haque said.

But Waa­ji­hat­ul Is­laamiyyah head Umar Ab­dul­lah has called on Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith to con­sid­er plac­ing of­fi­cers at mosques, not­ing Mus­lims must be safe in their places of wor­ship. He said Grif­fith should not rule out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of “copy­cats” car­ry­ing out sim­i­lar at­tacks lo­cal­ly, adding the al­ready out of con­trol “war” be­tween the so-called “Ras­ta City and Mus­lim City” made such at­tacks pos­si­ble.

“Waa­ji­hat­ul Is­laamiyyah is re­quest­ing that Grif­fith dis­patch at least two po­lice of­fi­cers in marked po­lice ve­hi­cles; to­day, Fri­day (yes­ter­day), at Masjids across the coun­try for the Ju­muah Prayers, es­pe­cial­ly the Masjids that are heav­i­ly pop­u­lat­ed in or­der to give a sense of se­cu­ri­ty and pro­tec­tion,” Ab­dul­lah said.

Call­ing on Mus­lims to re­main vig­i­lant and alert at all times, Ab­dul­lah said Is­lam­o­pho­bia was re­al.

He al­so cau­tioned against the shar­ing of the video de­pict­ing the hor­rif­ic New Zealand ter­ror­ist at­tack.

“It was video­taped with a back­ground theme song with an in­tend­ed pur­pose. Waa­ji­hat­ul Is­laamiyyah (The Is­lam­ic Front) is ask­ing every­one to de­sist from shar­ing this video as it sig­nals the threat of right-wing vi­o­lent ex­trem­ism.

“Do not play in­to the hands of these mur­der­ous in­di­vid­u­als by cir­cu­lat­ing their pro­pa­gan­da. It will on­ly serve to em­pow­er the Is­lam­o­pho­bic sen­ti­ments al­ready ablaze in the West­ern World,” he said.