Muslim leaders have expressed their outrage and sadness after 11 graves in a North Lincolnshire cemetery were vandalised. The attack was the second in 21 months on Muslim graves in the Brumby Cemetery in Scunthorpe’s Cemetery Road.
The Deputy Mayor of North Lincolnshire, Councillor Mashook Ali, said: “We prayed this would never happen again – but it has.” Mr Ali said he felt the graves had been deliberately targeted as there are three sections of the cemetery designated for Muslims. “We want those responsible brought to justice,” he said. “The latest attacks have shocked the local Muslim community to the core. We shall be pressing for extra security measures on the site.”
Mr Ali said the community rented areas of the Brumby Cemetery as burial ground under a 99-year-old lease agreement with North Lincolnshire Council and more than 100 Muslims were buried there.
In August 2008, police were called in after 24 headstones, some of them on children’s graves, were attacked in two separate areas of the cemetery. No arrests were ever made.