Mary Ng, Canada’s Minister of Commerce, denounced a hate crime that occurred at a mosque on Saturday and said that such crimes had no place in Canadian culture. An Islamic organisation claimed that the event entailed an apparent effort to rip apart a copy of the Muslim holy book.

An guy entered the mosque in Markham, 30 kilometers north of Toronto, on Thursday, according to a statement from the Islamic Society of Markham (ISM). It was reported that the individual appeared to have destroyed a Koran, yelled insults at attendees, and then attempted to ram them with his car.

“Deeply disturbed to hear of the violent hate crimes and racist behaviour at the Islamic Society of Markham,” Ng said in a post on Twitter.

She did not give details of the incident but said: “This violence and Islamophobia has no place in our communities.”

Muslims see any attempt to damage a Koran as blasphemous because they consider the Islamic holy book to be the literal word of God.

The incident comes during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, when worshippers throng to mosques. Thousands of people attend the mosque at Markham, the society said.

The National Council of Canadian Muslims said in a post on Twitter it was “greatly distressed” by the incident.