Hate attack: Glasgow newsagent killed after wishing Happy Easter

Muslim suspect in custody for stabbing British-Pakistani to death

A British-Pakistani shopkeeper was stabbed to death in Glasgow hours after wishing his customers Happy Easter on his social media accounts.

Scotland police are treating the attack as ‘religiously prejudiced’ as a 32-year-old Muslim suspect has been arrested after being caught red-handed.

Asad Shah, 40, was stabbed 30 times on Thursday by a man wearing a long religious robe, according to Daily Mail. He was pronounced dead on arrival at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital. Shah is believed to be a member of the Ahmadiyya community.

A family friend, Muhammad Faisal, said a bearded man entered Shah’s convenience store and spoke to him in his native language before stabbing him in the head with a kitchen knife.

Shah’s brother, who was working next door, rushed out to find the killer sitting on the chest of his victim. “That man must not have been too happy about what he was doing [or] what he was preaching. It was a well-planned attack. He must have been an extremist,” Faisal said.

Before his death, Shah had wished his friends a “Good Friday and a very happy Easter, especially to my beloved Christian nation” on his Facebook account.

Floral tributes poured in at the scene of his death and hundreds of people, including First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, took part in a silent vigil there Friday night in memory of the shopkeeper, according to the BBC.

Residents told BBC they were shocked and saddened by Shah's death and described him as a ‘gentleman’. Several people took to Twitter to pay tribute to Shah using the hashtag #thisisnotwhoweare. A fundraising page set up on GoFundMe in support of the victim’s family has raised more than £20,000.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 27^th, 2016.