When Michael Enright first got into Sharif’s yellow taxi, he started out friendly, said Bhairavi Desai, who is the executive director and co-founder of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance.
A 21-year-old American film student Michael Enright asked his Bangladeshi cab driver Ahmed Sharif if he was a Muslim before stabbing him in the face, throat and arm in broad daylight in New York.
When Enright first got into Sharif’s yellow taxi, he started out friendly, said Bhairavi Desai, who is the executive director and co-founder of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA).
“He asked Sharif about where he was from, how long he had been in America, if he was Muslim and how his Ramzan fast was going,” said Desai on Wednesday. “Then after a few minutes of silence he started making fun of Ramzan and cursing out Sharif before slashing him.”
Desai says the emotions fired up by the debate over plans for an Islamic centre near the World Trade Centre site are fanning bigotry against Muslims. Studies have also shown some Americans view Arabs, Muslims and South Asians with suspicion because of their religion or colour of their skin.
An article in The Journal News said Enright was working on a film, Home of the Brave, which was to be his senior thesis.
It said Enright spent time at Kaneohe Bay in Hawaii filming the Marines as they prepared for deployment to Afghanistan. Then in April and May, he then spent five weeks embedded with them in Afghanistan.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has emerged as a passionate defender of the controversial mosque, said, “This attack runs counter to everything that New Yorkers believe, no matter what God we may pray to.” He said he had invited Sharif to come to see him at City Hall on Thursday.
The irony is that the 43-year-old Muslim taxi driver was not even in favour of the mosque coming up near the 9/11 site.
The New York Times reported that recently, some passengers asked Sharif about the centre planned near ground zero and he replied that he was against it.
“I feel very sad,” Sharif said. “I have been here more than 25 years. I have been driving a taxi more than 15 years. All my four kids were born here. I never feel this hopeless and insecure before.”
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