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Ajit Jain in Toronto
The Ottawa police and immigration authorities are investigating the conduct of some police officers who allegedly raided a Muslim prayer room in the Canadian capital and threw the Koran on the floor.
On June 13, acting on a tip that a wanted refugee might be hiding in a downtown apartment, a heavily armed police tactical unit, accompanied by two immigration officials, raided the religious room, called a musallah.
Reports claim that police ordered members of the congregation, who were praying in the hall, out at gunpoint, searched them for weapons, and brought them back inside one by one to be interrogated by immigration officials about their identities and status in Canada.
They were shown a photograph of the man they were looking for, said Riad Salooljee, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
According to reports in The Toronto Star and The National Post, nobody recognised the man.
The men in the prayer hall allege that the police refused to remove their shoes and that they knocked the copy of the Koran on the floor.
"It was clearly perceived as disrespectful because of the way it [the raid] was conducted. It was conducted at gunpoint ... No answers were given to the people who were there," Salooljee was quoted as saying.
No arrests were made.
Muslim groups have formally complained to the police over the excessive force used.
CAIR has also asked Canadian Minister for Immigration and Citizenship Elinor Caplan to investigate her department's role in the raid.
A person who was involved in the incident, Ottawa Police Staff Sergeant Al Tario, reportedly said they could only file an official complaint.
"We have not received an official public complaint about this matter, but we've received letters from different sources," he was quoted as saying. "And as a result of that, an internal investigation has commenced."
Immigration department spokesman Giovanni Gatti said the officers held an immigration warrant for the arrest of a wanted person, and declined further comments.
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