Muhammad Imtiaz Hussain dares not leave his home in Albuquerque to water his plants. Or get books out of his car. Or even venture onto his balcony.
“My kids won’t let me go outside my apartment,” said Mr Hussain, 41, whose younger brother Muhammad Afzaal Hussain, 27, was fatally shot on Monday just a few blocks away a week ago. He was one of four muslim men recently murdered in the city – three in the past two weeks – and authorities believe the deaths are linked to and intended to affect the Muslim community.
The latest victim, a Muslim man in his mid-20s from South Asia whose name has not been released by police, was murdered shortly before midnight on Friday. Another man, Aftab Hussein, 41, was shot and killed on July 26. Authorities say the killings of all three may be related to the November 2021 murder of Mohammad Ahmadi, 62, outside a business he and his brother ran.
As the Albuquerque Police Department, FBI and state police appealed to the public for help in finding the killer or killers — authorities on Sunday described an interesting vehicle, a dark-colored four-door Volkswagen sedan — the attacks have deserted Muslims. left. a state of terror.
A member who visited New Mexico’s Islamic Center, the same mosque as all four victims, said he may never return for fear of becoming “bait.”
Other members have temporarily left the state to stay with relatives in other parts of the country to await the investigation. One man, who immigrated from Iraq, said he felt safer when he first came to the country in the 1980s. Another member, Salem Ansari, said some who go to the mosque and work night shifts have quit their jobs.
“This situation is getting so much worse,” said Mr. ansari.
Ahmad Assed, president of the mosque, said he grew up in Albuquerque and attended the Islamic Center, but never felt isolated as a Muslim in the city. But now, he said, the community is going through a “sort of managed panic.”
The elderly Mr. Hussain said he had lived safely in his neighborhood for eight years since moving to the United States with his wife and children. His brother Muhammad arrived in 2017, and both men went to the library at midnight or bought coffee late at night while attending the University of New Mexico as international students.
“Now I look out the window and think, ‘Oh, this is where my brother was killed. Should we move?’” he said.
Mr Hussain said he had initially hoped to return his brother’s body to be buried with relatives in Pakistan, but the numerous gunshot wounds had rendered his brother unrecognizable and Mr Hussain did not want his family to see him. The killer “wanted to kill him – the whole nine meters,” he said.
In general, hate crimes against Muslims in the United States show a downward trend. Brian Levin, a criminal justice professor at California State University in San Bernardino and director of the school’s Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, said the number of reported hate crimes against Muslims in 2020 was lower than in any year for 9 years. /11, although he added that those numbers may be biased due to pandemic constraints.
But he said hate crimes remain a concern: They rose by more than 20 percent in 2021 and another 4.7 percent in the first half of 2022, the center reported. According to Professor Levin’s studies, “underlying anti-Muslim attitudes” are ubiquitous and resurface in times of national hardship.
Authorities said they would refrain from using the term “hate” when naming the crimes until a motive could be established.
Last year, the Islamic Center was confronted with an attempted arson attack by a woman who, according to police, had set three fires in the mosque’s playground and one fire near the mosque’s main entrance. No one was injured and the woman was arrested and charged with arson. The case is pending.
The Islamic Center has instructed its nearly 2,500 members to stay at home as much as possible, use the “buddy system” when they go out and refrain from “involving or agitating” anyone, Mr Assed said.
He added that he still felt supported by other communities, but that this time he also felt a sense of “hopelessness and despair.”
“I do watch my back and get in the car. I look at all my surroundings,” he said. “You don’t know if they follow you from the mosque, if they actually see people going in and out of the mosque and following them elsewhere. The pattern is unknown.”
Some community members have expressed frustration at the lack of details of the police investigation, but Mr. Assed said he was in contact with authorities and understood why they were hiding the developments. Authorities have not explained why they believe the murders are related, nor have they indicated whether there were any witnesses.
Mr Hussain said he wanted the federal and state governments to deploy as many resources as possible to get to the killer.
But until someone is caught, nothing will lessen their fear—or their grief.
“My 5-year-old keeps asking, ‘Hey, where’s my uncle?’” he said. “She’ll see me cry and say, ‘Are you a crybaby? Why are you crying?’ But we can’t tell her. Not yet.”