CAIRO: Muslims and Christians set fire to each other’s homes and shops near the southern Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi on Saturday, three days after a gunman killed six Coptic Christians in a drive-by shooting, security sources said.

“Four houses and a shop belonging to Christians in the village of Tiraks were set on fire by Muslims, while four shops owned by Muslims in the village of Al-Bahgorah were set on fire by Christians,” a security source said. The villages are near Nag Hammadi.

Six people, Christian and Muslim, were injured in the fires, they added.

Police have taken 46 statements from Muslims and Christians in the area accusing members of the other faith of attacking their houses and damaging their properties, the sources said.

The drive-by shootings in Nag Hammadi took place around midnight on Coptic Christmas Eve on Wednesday night. Muslim and Christian groups held separate protests on Thursday and Friday.

The source said police had detained about 25 of the 2,000 protesters.

Security sources named three Muslims, who have since surrendered to police, as the suspected gunmen. They first fired on a crowd in a shopping area near a church in Nag Hammadi, killing two Christians.

They then went to the nearby church and shot five more, including the church’s Muslim guard. Another nine Christians were wounded.

Police investigators in the city 60 km north of the tourist and archaeological center of Luxor, said two of the three assailants were distantly related to a Muslim girl allegedly raped by a Christian more than a month earlier.

On Saturday, Christian residents of Al-Bahgorah inspected damage from overnight arson that charred their homes. They blamed Muslims for the attacks.

The three suspects in the Christmas Eve attack surrendered to police on Friday after security forces closed in on their hideout in sugar cane fields outside the town.

Two officials from a local prosecutor’s office said the suspects, whom authorities described as men with criminal records, denied they were involved in Wednesday’s attack.

The suspects will remain in custody for 15 days pending an investigation, the officials said, adding they could face charges of terrorism and premeditated murder — crimes punishable by death under Egyptian law.

No charges have been raised so far, said the officials.

Egypt’s government said the violence was not sectarian and was an isolated incident.