LONDON – As many as over 130 religious scholars refused to offer funeral prayers for the attackers who wrecked havoc on London Bridge Saturday night, it emerged on Tuesday.

According to a report by The Guardian, the clerics made the decision after witnessing the pain and sufferings of the victims and their loved ones although the funeral prayer is offered for all the Muslims irrespective of their past.

The Imams not only refused their own services but also urged other fellow imams to do the same as the actions of attackers were against Islam.

“We will not perform the traditional Islamic funeral prayer over the perpetrators, and we also urge fellow imams and religious authorities to withdraw such a privilege. This is because such indefensible actions are completely at odds with the lofty teachings of Islam,” they said.

A Muslim Metropolitan Police officer, Mak Chishty, also called for “a step-change – a different direction and a different movement to smash out terrorism, extremism and hatred.

Secretary-General of the Muslim Council of Britain Harun Khan also condemned the horrific attack and affirmed that the communities were grappling with this hateful ideology.

“It is often the case that the path towards extremism is outside of the mosque and at the margins of society. We are all grappling with this hateful ideology. This is an ideology that makes killing and hating cool, and uses the words of Islam as a cloak to justify it,” he said.

Meanwhile Muslims, Jews and Christians gathered at the East London Mosque to condemn the London attack holding a banner which read “one London, one community.”

London Bridge Attack

At least seven people were killed after assailants drove a van into pedestrians at high speed on London Bridge on Saturday night before stabbing revellers on nearby streets.

Armed police rushed to the scene and within eight minutes of receiving the first emergency call shot dead the three male attackers in the Borough Market area near the bridge.

Metropolitan Police have named two of the three attackers shot dead by officers following the terrorist attack on London Bridge and Borough Market on Saturday. They are Khuram Shahzad Butt and Rachid Redouane.

Butt, 27, was a British citizen who was born in Pakistan. Redouane, 30, also known as Rachid Elkhdar, had claimed to be both Moroccan and Libyan, according to police.