Singapore: Indian-Born Christian Boy Held For Plotting Attack on Mosque

Singapore police have arrested a 16-year-old teenage boy for plotting 2019 Christchurch-inspired mosque attack in New Zealand.

The Inter-Security Department (ISD) said the Indian-born Christian boy had bought an online jacket in preparation for the attack and intended to purchase more weapons at the time of his arrest in December, Reuters reported.

Read more: New Zealand: Terrorist who fired on mosques punished the worst in the country’s history

The ISD said the boy also visited two mosques near his home to prepare for the attack, which was aimed at live streaming on Facebook, as Christchurch attacker Brenton Tarrant did.

Dozens of worshipers were killed and several others were injured in an attack on Christchurch mosques on March 15, 2019.

The ISD said it saw two consequences of its plan: that it could be arrested before the plan was carried out, or that if it was carried out, the police would kill it.

He said the boy wanted to carry out his plan in the second year of the Christchurch attack.

Singapore’s colonial-era Internal Security Act allows for arrests under which authorities can detain anyone for up to two years in case of danger.

The teenage boy who planned to attack Muslims in Singapore is the first suspect to be influenced by right-wing ideology, while there have been several cases involving terrorism involving a 17-year-old man and a young man arrested last year in connection with ISIS.

Authorities have not yet said how long the young man will be detained.

Singapore’s Interior Minister Shanmugam said he would be sent for psychiatric counselling and would be briefed during his detention, but that he might not face criminal charges.

Talking to a local channel, he said that the court would be told that he was alone in the plan, he had made the plan himself but could not carry it out.

Shanmugam said many countries do not have laws like the Internal Security Act and nothing can be done before there is no more issue.

The New Zealand government released a nearly 800-page English-language investigative report into the worst terrorist attack on two Christchurch mosques in December 2020.

The report was released by the Royal Commission, a special commission set up by the New Zealand government to investigate the worst case of terrorism.

The Royal Commission was announced by New Zealand’s Prime Minister
Jacinda Ardern on March 25, 2019, just 10 days after the attack on mosques.

Earlier, in August 2020, a New Zealand court sentenced Brenton Tarrant to life in prison without parole for killing 51 worshipers by firing on mosques.