Token booth worker beaten trying to stop assault on woman

Photo by Jefferson Siegel for AM-New York
Photo by Jefferson Siegel for AM-New York

Tareque Ahmed, 35, said he was knocked to the ground and kicked repeatedly at the 36th St. station in Queens at approximately 11:45 p.m. Sunday.

A man had been beating up a woman, when Ahmed yelled to a co-worker to call police.

"He saw something and said something," fellow token booth clerk Rushdi Huq said of Ahmed Monday. "Imagine what's going to happen when the clerks are laid off and there's no one there to help."

Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials deny riders will be more vulnerable with fewer transit workers.

The MTA recently laid off about 250 token booth workers. The workers' union is fighting plans to terminate another 200 clerks - including Ahmed - and close 40 booths.

Ahmed was about to start his midnight-to-8 a.m. shift when he noticed a young woman and man on a platform bench.

"All of a sudden we heard the lady scream," Ahmed said at Elmhurst Hospital Center where he was treated and released. "Then I see him, oh my God, beating her."

Ahmed said that when he told his colleague to call cops, the attacker "came by the gate and started punching me," he said, pointing to his bruised face.

Ahmed is the second transit worker assaulted recently. An MTA bus driver was badly beaten last week.