Montreal police are investigating after a letter was sent to media outlets Wednesday morning threatening to set off bombs targeting Muslim students in two Concordia University buildings.
The threats led Concordia to evacuate three buildings at 11:30 a.m., sending thousands of students, faculty and other staff into downtown Montreal streets.
Between Monday and Thursday, one of the buildings is hosting an Islamic Awareness Week.
Just after 2 p.m., police said they had completed their searches of the Hall, and EV buildings (a third building, GM, was evacuated because it is connected to one of the targeted buildings). Police said nothing was found during the searches.
Concordia said it will reopen the buildings at 6 p.m. “As a precautionary measure, we will be increasing security measures across both campuses,” the university said in a 3:27 p.m. update on its website.
The threats came a month after a gunman attacked a Quebec City mosque, killing six immigrant Muslim men as they prayed. A Quebec-born student, Alexandre Bissonnette, who friends say was anti-immigrant, anti-feminist and feared the marginalization of the white race, has been charged.
“I’m shocked and surprised,” Concordia President Alan Shepard told reporters after a meeting with Quebec Higher Education Minister Hélène David early Wednesday afternoon.
“We’re an open university,” Shepard said. “We have students from 150 different countries and many faith communities and everybody’s welcome. And it’s a shame to see this kind of threat against any of our groups and students. We take it very seriously.”
David described the threats as “unacceptable and criminal. “Quebec is an inclusive place and a place where people live together and we won’t tolerate this kind of threat,” she said.
Public Security Minister Martin Coiteux said he is taking the threat “very seriously and we will do everything possible to understand exactly what is going on there, if there is a real threat or not.”
The letter is purportedly from a group calling itself Council of Conservative Citizens of Canada. It also referred to itself as C4, which is a type of explosive.
Asked whether the group is known to authorities, Coiteux said: “As far as I know now, it’s not a group that we know. But we will carry the investigation to know further.”
Montreal police spokesperson Benoit Boisselle said no suspicious objects or explosives were found.
The threats suggested bombs would be detonated over a 50-hour period between Wednesday and Friday.
Boisselle said Concordia has increased surveillance by its own security officers and Montreal police have stepped up patrols around the campus.
The investigation has been handed to the major crime division. It’s too early to discuss possible suspects and what information police have about the person or group that sent the threat, Boisselle said.
McGill received a similar letter Wednesday but it did not contain threats involving particular times or buildings, he said.
Boisselle said McGill decided not to evacuate. Montreal police have increased patrols around that university, as well.
The preventive evacuation of the Hall and EV buildings was ordered at 11:30 a.m., about two hours after the threat was received. The STM’s Green Line service to Guy-Concordia was also interrupted for a short period of time. The GM building was eventually evacuated due to its proximity to other buildings.
The letter, which was sent to the Montreal Gazette as well as several other media outlets just before 10 a.m., suggests bombs will be set off at two buildings this week – the Hall building on de Maisonneuve Blvd. and the Engineering, Computer Science and Visual Arts building on Ste-Catherine St.
Categories: Canada, The Muslim Times