LONDON: A Muslim man was hailed as a hero after he intervened in a knife attack in London’s busy theater district on Monday and helped to save the victims.
An 11-year-old girl and a 34-year-old woman were injured in the assault, which followed a week of far-right, anti-immigration riots across England targeting mosques and accommodation for asylum seekers.
Social media users were quick to highlight the fact that the man who stepped in tackle the attacker was Muslim. The BBC identified the good Samaritan as a 29-year-old named Abdullah who works as a security guard at the TWG Tea shop in Leicester Square. He told the broadcaster how he and his colleagues subdued the attacker and provided first aid to the child.
“I heard a scream and went outside to see a man with a knife,” Abdullah said. “The moment I saw it, I just jumped on him, grabbed his hand, put him down on the floor and kicked the knife away. I had no time, I just didn’t think.”
Other men rushed to help, he added, and they held the knifeman down for “four to five” minutes until help arrived.
“It’s horrible, to be honest,” Abdullah said. “I’ve never seen anything like that before. To do this to a kid, it’s horrible.”
He added that he and his colleagues gave first aid to the child before the emergency services took over. Police said the girl suffered “serious” but not life-threatening injuries, while the woman’s wounds were “more minor.”
Abullah said: “I just saw a kid getting stabbed and I tried to save her. It’s my duty to save them,” he said.
In a comment on a post on Instagram about the incident, user @edenmorissey said: “We need more people like Abdullah!!!”
Several people praised Abdullah while accusing the media of bias in failing to report the stabbing more widely. Instagram user @sophinakhanartistry wrote: “What a HERO!!!! Where’s the mainstream news about a brown, MUSLIM person saving lives?!"
@fvneralmoonx wrote: “Another example of male violence against women, and yet the far right will be silent, like they weren’t rioting for our ‘women and children’ the other week.”
After the incidents last week, police said they were prepared for further riots over the weekend, though in the event there was no further significant, widespread unrest.
Ministers remained on high alert, however, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office saying the government’s work in dealing with the fallout from the riots was far from over.
