Vandals ransack Muslim school in Montreal

Vandals attacked a Muslim school in Montreal on Monday night, smashing 20 windows and ransacking a school bus.

Montreal police said it is too soon to tell if the vandalism can be considered a hate crime.

"We're treating this as a simple mischief right now," Const. Laurent Gingras told CBC News on Tuesday.

Hayat Iskandarani, a secretary at École Les Jeunes Musulmans Canadiens, said the bus driver arrived Tuesday morning to find the destruction.

Sometime overnight Monday, vandals threw rocks through the windows of the school, and a garbage can was overturned inside the bus, which also had its windows smashed, Iskandarani said.

The school called police, who are investigating.

"It's really stunning, what happened," Iskandarani told CBC News Online on Tuesday. "With an accident as serious as that, you ask yourself always, 'Why?'"

She wonders if the crime was racially motivated. The school, in the borough of St-Laurent, is attended by Muslim children from kindergarten to Grade 11.

Gingras said it's also too soon for police to determine if the crime is a reaction to a Léger Marketing survey released Monday that suggests 50 per cent of Quebecers have a poor opinion of Muslims.

The survey also indicates 59 per cent of Quebecers are racist to some degree.

Iskandarani said this is not the first time the school has been vandalized. Vandals broke windows last year, but the damage was not as extensive as Monday night's attack.