A Muslim woman was set on fire over the weekend on New York City’s Fifth Avenue.
New York City police are looking for a man accused of setting a Muslim woman’s blouse on fire, Fox News reported.
According to reports, the incident took place Saturday at around 9 p.m. as the 35-year-old tourist shopped on Fifth Avenue. She was said to have been wearing traditional Muslim clothing at the time.
The woman told police that she “felt heat on her arm and noticed her blouse was on fire,” Fox News noted. She said that she was able to pat out the fire before noticing a man, who walked away shortly after, standing nearby holding a lighter in his hand.
The flames left a “quarter-sized hole” in the woman’s blouse and she left the situation with no injuries, NYPD spokesman Christopher Pisano told The Washington Post.
“The male doesn’t say anything and walks away,” Pisano said.
Police are investigating the incident as a hate crime. The incident has been said to fit a pattern of attacks on Muslim and Islamic sites in recent months, The Washington Post noted.
“We are clearly seeing a spike in attacks on individual Muslims and Islamic institutions in New York and around the country, which should be of concern to all Americans,” the Council on American-Islamic Relations said in a statement. “It is time for the mayor and the NYPD to put forward the necessary resources to investigate and prevent these attacks on the Muslim community.”
There have been no arrests made and no suspects have been identified, according to The Washington Post.
New York mayor Bill de Blasio has deployed additional police officers to secure and survey mosques and bolster the city’s Muslim population, Sky News noted.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.