Bangladeshi fights for life in NY hospital

Biju Mathew of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA) said family of Bangladeshi-origin taxi driver Shajedur Rahman was praying for his recovery at his bedside at the New York Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Centre.

According to a report in The New York Times, Shajedur slipped into a coma when a stranger punched him in the head at a gas station in the Upper East Side in Manhattan, New York City while he was returning to his taxicab from a coffee break in the early morning of October 2. The impact of the blow instantly caused a brain haemorrhage.

The Times report said the blow caught Shajedur by surprise and he fell to the ground, banging his head against the pavement. The assailant whisked away in a white van. A witness jotted down the van's license plate number and called 911.

The police told the Times that they believed Shajedur stopped his van a few blocks from the gas station at 96th Street near 1st Avenue for a cup of coffee. He was followed by the other van and confronted by the driver and passenger when he stepped out of his cab. While Shajedur and the driver of the van argued, the passenger punched him, police said

Investigators have tracked down the owner of the van and were "aggressively working" to find the person who punched the Bangladeshi guy. Her wife told the paper her husband had been driving a cab for a year, working 14-hour a day, seven days a week. He migrated to New York in 1990 from Bangladesh and obtained a green card last year.