Senior Imams fear backlash after radicalised teen shot dead by police

Australia’s most senior Imams have warned against drawing inferences about the life and death of a radicalised teen shot dead by police on Saturday.

WA police commissioner Col Blanch speaks about the Willetton incident.

Australia’s most senior Imams have warned against drawing inferences about the life and death of a radicalised teen shot dead by police on Saturday.

Ethnic community leaders also told The Australian they fear anti-Muslim sentiment could ratchet up as more details emerge about the teen’s deeply troubling behaviour in recent years. Late on Saturday he stabbed a stranger before turning on police, who shot him dead in a Bunnings carpark.

“The incident in the Perth car park late yesterday evening is tragic.” the Australian National Imams Council wrote in a statement late on Sunday. “The young person who was shot was known to the police and the police had been engaging with him over a two-year period. It is understood he also had mental health issues.

“Some members of the community reported the young person to the police on seeing a message given that the police had been engaging with him and best understood his circumstances.

“In the above context, the incident is a matter for the police to manage as it considers appropriate and it is not appropriate to make other statements and care needs to be taken to avoid drawing any inferences based on the little information which is known to the community. ANIC’s members in Perth will continue to assist the authorities as required.”

Suresh Rajan, a longtime advocate of Perth’s migrants and ethnic groups, said he had seen evidence that prejudice against Muslims was on the rise in some local communities. He was concerned that the teen’s radicalisation would be held against Muslim faith leaders even though they stood against extremism.

“This really needs to be seen as a mental health issue not an issue of religion or race,” Mr Rajan said.

“What I am seeing on social media, and what some people are saying to my face, is very worrying. There is some very ugly anti-Muslim feeling out there and this incident has emboldened it.”

Suresh Rajan is a longtime advocate of Perth’s migrants and ethnic groups.

Mr Rajan, who is not a Muslim, did not know the teen shot dead by police. He told The Australian that it was significant that West Australian Police Commissioner Col Blanch cited mental health issues in his press conference about the series of events that led police to shoot the teen. He felt it was important for Australians to know that police explicitly thanked members of Perth’s Muslim community for alerting them on Saturday night to say they believed the teen was about to do harm.

Those Muslims who contacted police had apparently received or seen a message from the teen and immediately called triple-0. The Imam of Perth’s biggest mosque, Nasir Mosque in the southern Perth suburb of Bibra Lake, said his community was in shock.

Imam Syed Wadood Janud said: “Members of the community are still coming to terms with it. There is no place for violence in Islam. (I) condemn any act of ­violence which is committed in our name, in the name of our religion. Our religion literally means peace.

“We’re extremely concerned about Islamophobia.”