DEARBORN, Mich., May 28 (UPI) — Michigan police said they evacuated a hotel where a Muslim conference was taking place when a pressure cooker was found in a women’s bathroom.
The pressure cooker was removed and detonated as a precaution but it contained no explosives, the Detroit News said.
The incident took place at about 9:45 p.m. Sunday the Adoba Hotel at the in Dearborn, Mich. The hotel was hosting a three-day conference by the Universal Muslim Association of America, a moderate group that encourages Muslims of all nationalities to be active in their communities, WWJ-TV, Detroit said. The bomb scare canceled the group’s banquet Sunday night.
The suspects in last month’s Boston Marathon bombing used pressure cookers filled with shrapnel and explosives.
Dawud Walid, executive director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said there was no logical reason for a conference attendee to leave an empty pressure cooker in a woman’s bathroom — suggesting it was an act meant to intimidate conference attendees or disrupt the proceedings.
“It’s very odd that someone would leave an empty pressure cooker in a women’s bathroom at an Islamic conference that attracted people from throughout the country,” Walid said Monday. “I highly doubt it was a participant in the conference. … My visceral reaction was this was someone trying to play a prank or intimidate the Muslim community.”
Police said the investigation is ongoing and no suspects have been named.
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