Five people were shot dead after an unknown man opened fire in a Quebec City Mosque during evening prayers, the mosque’s president told to local reporters on 29th January (Sunday).

Three gunmen fired about 40 people, who were in the Quebec City Islamic Cultural Center, a witness said. Police surrounded the mosque with security perimeter and declined to comment about the incident to the news reporters.

"Why is this happening here? This is barbaric," said the mosque's president, Mohamed Yangui

Last year in the month of June, a pig's head was left on the doorstep of the cultural center.

Yangui said that he received frantic calls from people, who were at the evening prayers. He said he did not know how many were injured in the shooting and said injured people were taken to different hospitals across Quebec City. Yangui was not inside the mosque during the shooting.

Incidents of Islamophobia increased in Quebec in recent years amid a political debate over banning the niqab, or Muslim face covering. In 2013, police investigated after a mosque in the Saguenay region of Quebec was splattered with what was believed to be pig blood.

In the year 2015, a day after a gunman attack and suicide bombers in Paris, a mosque was set on fire in the neighboring province of Ontario.

Major Terrorist attacks in 2016

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