{"id":77509,"date":"2026-06-06T16:02:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T16:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/77509\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T16:02:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T16:02:08","slug":"owner-heartbroken-after-racially-motivated-arson-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/77509\/","title":{"rendered":"Owner heartbroken after racially-motivated arson attack"},"content":{"rendered":"

An Indian grocery store which was set to open in the coming months has been destroyed in what police have described as a racially-motivated arson attack in north Belfast.<\/p>\n

The blaze at a former Gospel Hall on the Shankill Road began in the early hours of Saturday.<\/p>\n

The owner who bought the building last year said he was heartbroken by what had happened.<\/p>\n

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said the building had been “totally gutted” by the blaze.<\/p>\n

The owner, who did not wish to be named, has been in Northern Ireland for 18 years.<\/p>\n

He said he had “no words” to describe how he was feeling.<\/p>\n

“My whole life investment is just gone on this and we had no insurance on it because the electrician work was going on,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Everything is just gone and burnt out,” he added.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Police received a report just after 02:45 BST that there was a fire at an old Gospel Hall on the Shankill Road [BBC]<\/p>\n

The fire service confirmed to the police that the fire had been caused by “deliberate ignition to the roof”.<\/p>\n

Supt Finola Dornan said: “This out-of-use building had been bought by legitimate business people who would have brought jobs to the local community.”<\/p>\n

She said the police, as with “any crime motivated by hate”, would be providing the owner with supervision, investigation and support.<\/p>\n

“We do not underestimate the impact hate-related crimes have on victims, their families and wider communities,” she added.<\/p>\n

Dornan also said that while the police have a key role to play in preventing hate crimes, it was “a wider societal issue which cannot be resolved by policing alone”.<\/p>\n

Three fire appliances attended and left at about 5:00 BST.<\/p>\n

\"Brian<\/p>\n

DUP assembly member Brian Kingston said those responsible have done a “great disservice” to the community [BBC]<\/p>\n

DUP assembly member for north Belfast Brian Kingston called it an “utterly appalling” attack.<\/p>\n

He said the former church building had closed about five years ago.<\/p>\n

“No-one wanted to take it on since,” he told BBC News NI.<\/p>\n

“There are many people seeking to regenerate the Shankill Road, to bring derelict buildings back into use.”<\/p>\n

“This totally undermines this work.<\/p>\n

“The vast majority of the people on the Shankill are opposed to arson attacks and opposed to attacks on anyone.<\/p>\n

“Those responsible have done a great disservice to this community.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Indian grocery store which was set to open in the coming months has been destroyed in what…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77510,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5707,17,30800,30796,30798,30795,30799,30797],"class_list":["post-77509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-arson-attack","tag-canada","tag-gospel-hall","tag-indian-grocery-store","tag-north-belfast","tag-shankill-road","tag-supt-finola-dornan","tag-the-police-service-of-northern-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}