The small, black pig lay dead on its side upon the wooden deck, a deep gash on the side of its belly.
That’s what a congregant at the Islamic Outreach Center saw Tuesday evening when he and a handful of other worshippers arrived for nightly prayers. Worshippers also found blood stains near the door of the Harris County mosque.
“It looked like someone was trying to take it inside, but it was locked,” said Ilyas Choudry, who helps run the center.
At the end of a news conference on Wednesday about the incident, mosque officials also discovered what appeared to be animal intestines hanging from the facility’s front gate. The intestines may have come from the pig, which appeared to be cut open.
Mosque officials believe someone may have left the pig at the Cypress-area center as an act of hate. They called the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, which is investigating.
Houston Chronicle, 5 December 2012
See also “Slaughtered pig left outside of Cypress mosque a possible hate crime”, Houston Press Blog, 5 December 2012