RCMP say four men were shot Friday afternoon at a Muslim cemetery in a rural area west of Calgary.
Sgt. Jack Poitras said the shooting happened near the community of Cochrane and the injured people were being treated at Calgary hospitals. A police spokeswoman at the scene said all suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
Police said there was a funeral at the cemetery and a group of people remained at the site following the service. Poitras said it appears the shooting involved people who were in the group.
“There’s not believed to be any immediate danger to the public,” Poitras said. “It seems to be group-related at this time from what people are saying.”
The cemetery is located a couple of kilometres east of Cochrane. Three RCMP cruisers blocked the entrance to a tree-lined road Friday night.
Zouheir Osman, who is in charge of the cemetery, said a service for a 21-year-old man was taking place before the shooting. He said he left shortly before the shots were fired.
“I got a call from one of the neighbours here that there was a shooting,” said Osman. “So I called back to see if the people who were left behind were OK and they said there was nothing. Then I kept going and heard it on the news and I started getting calls after that and I drove all the way back.”
Osman said he didn’t believe the shooting had anything to do with the man being remembered at the funeral.
“It has nothing to do with him. It was just a heart attack,” he said.
However, Calgary Imam Syed Soharwardy said he spoke with two people who attended the funeral and they suspect the shooting was gang-related.
“It did not seem to be a hate crime,” Soharwardy said. “It looks like it was a turf war or gang war or some type of revenge.”
The funeral was for a Pakistani man named Hamza Nazir, said Soharwardy, who knows Nazir’s family. He said he doesn’t know the cause of the young man’s death.
Soharwardy said many young people from different ethnic groups showed up at the funeral, and one group even stayed outside the cemetery fence.
“People were quite suspicious because they had never seen so many young people attending a funeral,” said Soharwardy. “So after the burial, they just left.”
He said the shooting happened a few minutes later.
Det. Lawrence Mooney with the Calgary police said the injured didn’t come to hospital in an ambulance.
“They would have transported themselves in some shape or form,” he said.
Despite police assuring the public there was no danger, a heavily armed police tactical team was outside the Calgary Foothills Hospital on Friday evening.
