A metro limo driver says he was physically assaulted and called a terrorist after a customer asked if he was Muslim.
The man says he was physically attacked in front of the Colcord Hotel as he went to pick up his customers after a Thunder game. Badar Aslam, 58, a limo driver for Kings Limo, says it happened just after he picked up a customer from a Norman hotel.
"He says ‘Oh where you are?' I said I'm from Pakistan. ‘Oh you a Muslim then' I said ‘Yes sir' he was ‘You are a terrorist you know,'" explained Aslam.
Aslam says the man continued to cuss at him before he was dropped off for the game. After the game was over Aslam says the man was upset that he couldn't pick them up closer to the arena and that's when he assaulted him.
"He got me from here and start punching me on here on this place and here and see my glasses here they've been broken," explained Aslam.
A witness stepped in to help and the suspect took off before police arrived. But the suspect then called the limo company.
"That Pakistani that picked me up, we didn't see eye to eye," he said on a recorded message.
Aslam was injured in his chest and shoulder and says he's scared to work again.
"In the country like the United States how can you hit anybody with all force and see the age, I'm a heart patient I could have died there you know."
The Council on American-Islamic Relations has now stepped in asking for police to take this case seriously.
"He feels really that the safety and security that he once enjoyed here in Oklahoma has been stripped from him," said Adam Soltani with CAIR-OK.
"I should get justice on this one," said Aslam.
A spokesperson with OKC police says they do not believe this is a hate crime, instead the suspect was drunk and upset about where he was being picked up and that was the driving force behind the assault .
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