GCT hate attack
Muslim MTA gal targeted
A Muslim MTA worker wearing her uniform and a hijab was called a “terrorist’’ by a hatespewing straphanger — and then pushed down the stairs Monday at Grand Central Station , officials said.
“I was running for my life,” recalled Soha Salama, 45, a mother of four who lives in Queens and originally hails from Egypt. “I was on in the train and he kept telling me I should go back to my country. He said, ‘You’re a terrorist. You shouldn’t work here.’ ”
Salama was on her way to work Monday morning when she was attacked at the Grand Central42nd Street sunway station at 6:20 a.m., according to law-enforcement and MTA sources.
The “floating’’ station agent told The Post she was riding a No. 7 train at the time and that her assailant walked up to her and accosted her for no reason — shouting the Islamophobic slurs — while also poking the MTA patch on her uniform with his finger.
“This has never happened to me before,” Salama later said with tears in her eyes. “I don’t know why he was calling me these names.”
After the man followed Salama off the train, he shoved her down the stairs and ran off, cops said.
“He confronted me when I got off at Grand Central,” she said. “He pushed me down the stairs, but I couldn’t find anyone to help me. He followed me after until I reached the police. They walked me down to where I work. I injured my knee and my ankle.”
The assault came just two days after an off-duty Muslim NYPD cop and her son were accosted by a racist thug in Brooklyn. In both cases, the victims were wearing a hijab.
“I think this hate is raised after the election,” Salama said. “Dur- ing the Obama administration, this hate wasn’t there. In the 20 years I live here, I didn’t experience something like that.”
Mayor de Blasio also blamed the city’s rising tide of bias attacks in part on the election of Donald Trump, saying on Monday, “You can’t have a candidate for president single out groups of Americans negatively and not have some ramifications.”
Salama told The Post that Monday’s attack has left her on edge — although her faith in mankind is still strong.
“I’m going to be more cautious and I will love the people and keep greeting them every day,” she said. “I will [continue to] wear the hijab.”