TORONTO, 12 November — Two bright Muslim students — a brother and a sister, whose parents are living in Jeddah — were stabbed to death in a luxury high-rise complex in Mississauga, 25 kilometers west of Toronto.
The Muslim community across Canada is in a state of shock and suspects that the murders are part of hate crimes unleashed against Muslims worldwide after the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
Police said Nuzhat Amiji, 23, and her brother Naeem Amiji, 21, died of stab wounds. While Nuzhat was bleeding to death in her apartment on the 21st floor of Monarch Complex on Webb Drive near Burnhamthorpe Road West, her brother Naeem ran up and down for help before collapsing.
With blood gushing out from all parts of his body, university student Naeem pounded the doors of the neighbors for help. Afterward he rushed to the 21st floor for help before finally pulling the fire alarm.
Responding to the ringing alarm, firefighters discovered the dying man on a stairwell in a “massive pool of blood,” police said.
Despite rescue workers’ frantic efforts, Naeem died shortly after being rushed to the nearby hospital. Their father Shujauddin Amiji rushed from Jeddah to Toronto to receive the bodies of his loved ones.
Amiji, a businessman from Bombay, has been living in Saudi Arabia for many years while two of his grown-up children Nuzhat and Naeem were studying in a Toronto university, said Manzoor Qureshi, a community leader here.
According to eyewitnesses, machine-gun-toting members of Peel Region police searched the complex for the killers. “Extensive investigations are being made,” said police constable Harry Tam.
Tam would not comment on whether there was a trail of blood on two floors between the two bodies.
However, he did say that the discovery of Naeem quickly led the police to his sister. “We followed the trail,” Tam added.
Meanwhile, police sources told Arab News yesterday that a Mississauga man had been held for interrogation but declined to give further details.
Arabs and Muslims, especially Saudis, in the West have been facing hate crimes following the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States.
According to Hussein Obaish, spokesman of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, more than 320 hate crimes against Arabs and Muslims have occurred since Sept. 11.
“There are four cases of murders, which are linked to the Sept. 11 attacks while the motive for five other murders is still under investigation,” Al-Watan newspaper quoted Obaish as saying.
About 300 Saudi students have cut short their university studies in the United States and returned home as a result of the growing number of hate crimes.
Some 5,500 Saudi students — 3,500 of them on government scholarships — had been studying at US universities before the Sept. 11 terror attacks, deputy head of the Saudi Embassy’s information center, Mahmoud Qattan, told the Arabic daily.
Most faced visa and immigration problems, Qattan said, playing down the effect of harassment and maltreatment of Saudis since the Sept. 11 terror attacks on New York and Washington.
Hundreds of Saudis have returned from the United States and complained of widespread abuse, harassment and maltreatment mainly by government agencies.
An undisclosed number of Saudi nationals have been taken for questioning over the attacks in New York and Washington, and several of them remain in police custody.
Recent reports indicate that scores of Saudi students in the US have moved to the American University of Beirut and other Lebanese institutions after Sept. 11.
