Bronx Bangladeshi Beaten Over Ethnicity

NEW YORK

A Bangladeshi man smoking outside a Bronx restaurant late Monday night was pummeled by several Hispanics, an attack he said may have been a reaction to the Boston Marathon bombing hours before.

Before Abdullah Faruque, 30, was beaten, one of the attackers, using an obscenity, called Faruque an Arab. New York City hate crimes detectives are investigating.

Faruque told police that he stepped outside Applebee’s to smoke around 11:30 p.m. Monday. Three or four Hispanic males whom he had seen drinking followed him outside, demanding to know his ethnicity.

“One of the guys asked if I was Arab,” Faruque said. “I just shook my head, said like, ‘Yeah, whatever.’ I didn’t even know that [the] Boston [bombing] happened because I had a busy day.”

The man then stuck his head back inside the bar and said, “Yeah, he’s an Arab,” and the gang began punching him on the head and body, dislocating his left shoulder and leaving him semiconscious.

Faruque, who was born in the South Asian country but grew up in the Bronx, said he went home and heard about the Boston bombing, “and then it hits me — that’s why I got jumped,” he said.

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