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Taxi Driver Says Passenger Beat & Robbed Him For Being A 'Muslim A**hole'
By
Ben Yakas
Published May 25, 2016
Modified Jul 24, 2017
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By
Ben Yakas
Published May 25, 2016
Modified Jul 24, 2017
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A taxi driver says that he was beaten and robbed by a belligerent passenger this weekend. "He landed about 10 or 15 punches and I couldn’t see anything," cabbie Serajul Khan told the News. "He was screaming, 'I’m going to kill you, you Muslim asshole!'"
Khan, 49, told the paper he picked up the suspect and a woman at Bedford Park Boulevard and Webster Avenue near the New York Botanical Garden around 8:30 p.m. Saturday. “I figured I’d make some gas money before I went to my mosque to pray," he noted. "I’d been working seven or eight hours."
When they arrived at their destination at 187th Street, the suspect initially handed him a $10 bill, then became livid when Khan only handed him back a dollar in change. Khan took out his cash to give him more change, and that's when the suspect started pummeling him. Khan said he tried to get out of the vehicle to escape the man's rage, but the suspect pulled him to the ground where he punched and stomped him more.
The suspect then took all of Khan's cash—about $200—and his cell phone and left him on the street bleeding. "What did he do to you that got you so upset that you had to keep beating him?" his daughter, Onita Naznin, rhetorically asked ABC.
Khan suffered bruising all over his body, and still has black eyes and bruises on his lip and ears this week. Khan’s family told reporters that he is unsure if he wants to return to his job, but will install both a surveillance camera and partition inside his cab if he decides to do so.
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Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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