By Nathan Duke
A 35-year-old Queens token booth clerk said he was beaten ferociously on the platform at Astoria’s 36th Street subway station last week after he attempted to help a woman being attacked by a man.
Tareque Ahmed of Woodside was repeatedly punched and kicked Sunday by an unknown assailant on the platform of the N subway line at the 36th Street station in Astoria.
The token booth clerk had arrived at work 15 minutes before his midnight-to-8 a.m. shift was to begin. He called to a co-worker to call police after he saw a man beating up a woman on the platform.
“She was yelling loudly, ‘Call the police, help me,’” Ahmed said. “I notified the clerk on duty. [The man] came out around the gate and started punching me. When I fell down on the floor, he kicked me in the back and on my right shoulder.”
Ahmed was treated at Elmhurst Hospital, where he underwent a scan. His face was bruised and his forehead was cut, but he suffered no fractures. On Tuesday, he said his jaw and forehead were still aching.
“My eye is still red and my forehead is still in pain,” he said.
The clerk said his attacker appeared to be in his 20s, while the woman was probably in her late teens.
No arrests have been made in the incident and a spokesman for the city Police Department did not have information on the attack.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority recently laid off 250 token booth workers and the workers’ union is now attempting to prevent the agency from letting another 200 clerks go.
“What will happen if there’s nobody there to help?” Ahmed said of the cuts.
Ahmed was the second MTA worker in Queens to be assaulted in the past month. On June 14, a Woodhaven teen is alleged to have punched a bus driver who picked him up in Forest Hills, according to police.
Reach reporter Nathan Duke by e-mail at nduke@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4566.
