Thorold council defers bylaw changes after city failed to meet burial needs

Thorold City Council deferred its decision to change a bylaw Tuesday, to accommodate a Muslim family’s desire to bury their daughter in the city’s Lakeview Cemetery.

The family was told that the desired grave at the cemetery contravened a bylaw that did not allow the sale of burial plots in unopened sections of the cemetery.

Instead, 18-year-old Alina Masud, who died in an accident on Highway 406 in December, was buried in a cemetery in Niagara Falls.

Demonstrators protested at a city council meeting soon after Masud’s death, to allow Muslims to be buried in an area in Lakeview Cemetery, instead of having to go out of town for funerals.

A city councillor then posted on social media saying that claims of councillors stopping a burial and refusing the Muslim community a site were false.

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Asad Mahmood is the founder and Imam at Thorold’s Mosque Aisha, who countered that post by saying the councillor’s post was false.

Thorold council met Tuesday to discuss the issue again, which resulted with no agreement. During the meeting Mahmood spoke, but was interrupted.

Mahmood also said the Muslim community would be satisfied if the city sold them a number of plots in an opened section of the cemetery, but they could only do that if the bylaw was changed.

Thorold staff will now author a new report to address the information and bring it to council for consideration.

WATCH MORE: Thorold Muslim family says they were denied local burial for their daughter