Mosque worshippers in a suburb of Toronto, Canada have confronted and tackled a 24-year-old man, who allegedly wielding an axe entered the place of worship and attacked people with bear spray on Saturday, police said, BBC reported.

The British news service while quoting local media said that one worshipper had knocked the axe from the man’s hands, and held him down until police arrived.

“A 24-year-old man was arrested at the scene in the suburb of Mississauga, and he has since been charged,” it read. “Today at the Fajr (dawn prayer) at the Dar Al-Tawheed Islamic Centre in Mississauga, our congregants were subject to a violent attack,” the centre said in a statement.

Some people had minor injuries from the bear spray, the mosque’s imam said, adding that the individual carried “numerous other sharp-edged weapons,” in addition to an axe.

One of the worshippers said the experience was “terrifying” and described hearing a scream before turning around to see a man holding an axe and using bear spray – similar to pepper spray – against three people.

“By the time he was spraying, the people in the first row realised something was going on and one of the young men turned around and knocked away the axe before he had a chance to use it,” Noorani Sairally told Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail.

The young man then held the alleged assailant down until police arrived, the witness said.

“Before he could inflict harm on any worshippers, several congregants bravely were able to stop him in his tracks,” imam Ibrahim Hindy said in a statement. “Our community will never be broken and we refuse to be intimated,” he added.

Police identified the arrested man as Mohammad Moiz Omar and charged him with six offences – “including assault with a weapon and administering a noxious substance with intent to endanger life or cause bodily harm.”

According to the investigators, the attack was believed to be a “hate-motivated incident.”

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who on January 29 appointed a special representative on combating Islamophobia, took to Twitter to condemn the incident and lauded the worshippers who foiled the attack.

“The attack on congregants at the Dar Al-Tawheed Islamic Centre is incredibly disturbing. I strongly condemn this violence – which has no place in Canada – and I’m keeping the community in my thoughts today. I also want to applaud the courage of those who were there this morning,” he said.

On January 29, the Canadian PM in a tweet had said Islamophobia was “unacceptable” and stressed the need for putting an “end” to such hate against Muslim communities as world leaders make effort to bridge the gap between different communities following attacks in the past.