A Muslim woman's hijab was pulled off allegedly by a man in a vicious assault in London, amid a spike in hate crime incidents following a series of terror attacks by Islamists in the UK.
Aniso Abdulkadir was waiting for a tube at Baker Street station on July 16 when she says the man grabbed her headscarf before lashing out with his fists and pinning one of her friends up against a wall, the BBC reported.
"This man at Baker Street station forcefully attempted to pull my hijab off and when I instinctively grabbed ahold of my scarf he hit me," Abdulkadir tweeted and posted a picture of the man who allegedly attacked her.
"He proceeded to verbally abuse my friends and I, pinning one of them against the wall and spitting in her face," the tweet read.
Abdulkadir added that a woman who was present was also threatening and verbally abusive, the report said.
A British Transport Police spokesman said it was being investigated as a hate crime.
"Behaviour like this is totally unacceptable and will not be tolerated...This incident has been reported to us and were investigating," the official said.
However, a man claiming to be the man in the image tweeted on July 17 to protest his innocence, claiming he had been defending his partner from what he called a "racist attack", the Guardian reported.
He said the allegation against him was "completely false".
"I would like to confirm I never hit or attacked anyone I simply defused the situation by separating them," Pawel Uczciwek wrote.
"The police is fully cooperating with me and will be able to obtain CCTV footage showing the three women attempting to attack my partner because we are in an interracial relationship," he claimed.
The assault comes amid a spike in hate crime incidents in the UK following a suicide bombing at a concert in Manchester that claimed 22 lives and an attack in London by three terrorists, who drove a van into pedestrians and then went on a stabbing spree, killing eight persons before being shot dead.
Anti-Muslim crimes in the British capital increased fivefold since the London attack, London Mayor Sadiq Khan had said, warning that police would take a "zero-tolerance approach".
Clifford had previously denied killing Carol Hunt, 61, the wife of horseracing commentator John Hunt, and their daughters, Louise Hunt, 25, and Hannah Hunt, 28. (Photo: Hertfordshire Police /Handout via REUTERS)
Man pleads guilty to crossbow murders of BBC presenter’s family
A 26-YEAR-OLD man on Wednesday pleaded guilty to murdering two daughters of a BBC sports commentator and stabbing to death their mother in a crossbow attack.
Kyle Clifford had previously denied killing Carol Hunt, 61, the wife of horseracing commentator John Hunt, and their daughters, Louise Hunt, 25, and Hannah Hunt, 28.
However, appearing via video link at Cambridge Crown Court in eastern England, Clifford changed his pleas.
The court heard that Clifford tied up Louise Hunt, his former partner, binding her arms and ankles with duct tape before shooting her in the chest with a crossbow at the family home last July.
He pleaded guilty to three counts of murder, one count of false imprisonment, and two counts of possessing offensive weapons. However, Clifford denied raping Louise.
The murders took place at the family home in the commuter town of Bushey, near Watford, northwest of London.
Clifford was arrested in July following a manhunt after the bodies of the three women were discovered.
(With inputs from AFP)