NYPD: Men chanted ‘ISIS! ISIS!’ during Bronx attack
Image of Mujibur Rahman of the Bronx. He is the victim of an alleged hate crime attack. Credit: News12 the bronx / News12 The Bronx
A Bronx man of Bangladeshi descent was brutally beaten by two men chanting, “ISIS! ISIS!” according to NYPD officials who are investigating the incident as a hate crime.
Police said Sunday the 43-year-old-man was walking with his 9-year-old niece in the Parkchester neighborhood in the Bronx around 5:30 p.m. Friday when he was punched in the head numerous times by two men as they shouted “ISIS! ISIS!”
The attackers also pushed the man to the ground and kicked him multiple times, police said. He was taken by ambulance to Jacobi Medical Center, where he was treated for his injuries and released Saturday night. Police said the man’s niece was unharmed.
As of Sunday evening, no arrests had been made in the case and an investigation is “ongoing” by the NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force, an NYPD spokesman said.
Police did not release the victim’s name, but News 12-The Bronx identified the man as Mujibur Rahman of Parkchester. Joined by Bangladeshi community activists on Saturday, he told the news station he believed he was attacked because he was wearing typical Islamic garb, including a tupi headdress.
Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. on Sunday condemned the attacks as “hateful” and “not representative of the shared values of the people of this borough.”
“An attack on one of us over race, religion, gender or sexual orientation is an attack on us all,” Diaz Jr. said in a statement.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations of New York, a Muslim civil rights organization, issued a statement Sunday calling on the FBI to also investigate the incident.
“The FBI should add its resources to the investigation of this disturbing incident in order to send a clear message to bigots that attacks on American Muslims will not be tolerated and that perpetrators of such attacks will face the full weight of the law,” said CAIR-NY’s director of operations Sadyia Khalique.
Laura Figueroa Hernandez is the White House correspondent and previously covered New York City politics and government. She joined Newsday in 2012 after covering state and local politics for The Miami Herald.
