NEW YORK — A coalition of advocacy groups and political leaders held a rally on Tuesday linking the subway pushing death of a South Asian man to a broader anti-Muslim environment in New York City – inflamed, they said, by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the New York City Police Department.
“When our own government, our own police, our own institutions, our own media continue to engage in racial profiling or painting communities as suspect, we cannot expect the results to be any different than what they are right now,” said Fahd Ahmed, legal and policy director for the South Asian advocacy group Desis Rising Up and Moving.
The Queens rally centered around the death of Sunando Sen, a Hindu immigrant from India who was crushed to his death by a subway train after 31-year-old Erika Menendez allegedly pushed him on Dec. 27. Menendez, who has a history of mental problems, told investigators she shoved Sen because she thought he was Muslim and “I hate Hindus and Muslims ever since 2001 when they put down the twin towers,” police said.