Update: Ekram Haque passed away today.
::
I just read a horrifying, heartbreaking story in the Daily Mail:
A Muslim pensioner was on the brink of death last nightA Muslim pensioner has died today after an appalling race-hate attack by a gang of schoolboys.
Retired care worker Ekram Haque, 67, was battered to the ground in front of his three-year- old granddaughter Marian.
Doctors have told his family he has no chance of survival. Last night he was on a ventilator as friends and relatives paid their last respects.
What’s worse: the attack, which occurred a week ago, was not an isolated incident. Other elderly Desis have recently been assaulted near that mosque. In response, the police “stepped up patrols” in the area, and this STILL happened.
Mr Haque, a devout Muslim, was ambushed as he left his local mosque in Tooting, South-West London, where he had been attending evening prayers during the holy month of Ramadan.
As he and Marian waited for a lift, the gang ran up behind him and clubbed him around the head.
Ran up behind him. These craven thugs attacked him from behind, while he was with his three-year old granddaughter. He never saw it coming.
Two other worshippers chased the thugs away but Mr Haque - described by friends as a ‘gentle giant’ - had suffered horrific head injuries.
And about that baby girl, who witnessed the unholy and remembered it well enough to provide a vivid account of what she saw:
His granddaughter has been left ‘very shaken and disturbed’…Mr Haque’s 35-year-old son, a consumer law advisor, described the attack on his father as ’ mindless violence’ but urged people to remain calm.
He said: ‘I would urge people in our community to remember that Islam is a peaceful religion and does not condone revenge attacks. If you want to do anything, just pray.
I will pray. For justice and a world where our parents and grandparents can worship at a mosque without getting jumped and bludgeoned to death.
::
Update #2: Up to twenty adolescents were involved in Haque’s attack, according to this article in the London Evening Standard. The thugs preyed on two other victims before attacking Ekram Haque.
Minutes before Mr Haque was ambushed, two other worshippers - a 39-year-old and a man in his seventies - were also beaten by the gang.
His poor granddaughter was terrorized:
Marian Haque, who had been standing with him, ran screaming back into the Idara-e-Jaaferiya Islamic centre in Church Lane, Tooting, as her grand-father was beaten unconscious.
The TOI says that Marian is five, not three. I’ll amend the post and its title once I can confirm that information with a more reliable source.
Ekram Haque was a Londoner via Kolkota:
The victim, a devout Muslim born in Calcutta, used to work in a local care home for disabled adults.
His son said: “My father loved living in Britain and considered himself a Londoner. I just want justice.”
A 14-year old was due in court today. Developing.
