A distraught, and probably drunk, 21-year old wingnut pulled a knife on a New York City cabbie and slashed him multiple times during evening rush hour on Wednesday after inquiring if he was a Muslim. The incident, coming amid a fervid debate over a proposed mosque close to the site of the 9/11 tragedy, sparked off an tortured debate about possible growing Islamophobia in the United States, even as it stunned the city known as Big Apple, almost 40% of whose residents are foreign-born and hail from nearly every corner of the world.
Michael Enright's cab ride after he hailed the taxi driven Ahmed Sharif, a 44-year old Bangladeshi immigrant appears to have begun calmly enough. Enright actually greeted him with a "salaam aleikum" and inquired about how the holy month of Ramzan was going for him. At some point, the young man began making fun of Ramzan, upon which Sharif says he went quiet to avoid any further aggravation. But as the traffic inched down on Third Avenue, close to a block lined with Indian and Bangladeshi eateries, Enright began some soldierly shouting and cursing at Sharif.
After a psychiatric evaluation, Enright was charged with second-degree attempted murder as a hate crime, first-degree assault as a hate crime and criminal possession of a weapon, and held without bail.
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