Blaze guts Texas mosque vandalised years ago

Cause of fire yet to be established

An early-morning blaze on Saturday gutted a Texas mosque that had earlier been vandalised.

Reports suggested that the fire had broken out at the Islamic Centre of Victoria at around 2am. Firefighters said the cause of the fire was yet to be established.



"It's sad to stand there and watch it collapse down, and the fire was so huge," Shahid Hashmi, the Islamic centre's president, said. "It looks completely destroyed."

In 2013, a man had confessed to vandalising the structure. "Because of growing anti-Muslim bigotry in our nation, and because of the recent spike in hate incidents targeting Islamic institutions and individuals, we urge investigators to keep the possibility of a bias motive for this fire in mind," CAIR-Houston Executive Director Mustafaa Carroll said.



Victoria Fire Marshal Tom Legler has now asked federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to help determine what caused the fire. In December, a man was sentenced to four years in prison for setting a Greater Houston mosque ablaze towards the end of 2015.

This article originally appeared on Time.