Police hold 36-year-old after video footage of Muslim women
being sworn at and threatened with violence goes viral
A woman has been arrested in
connection with the racist abuse of two Muslim women on a London bus, after video footage of the incident went
viral on social media.
The
36-year-old woman, who has not been named, was arrested on Friday at her home
in Willesden Green, north-west London, on suspicion of a racially aggravated
public order offence on the No 206 bus.
The
Metropolitan police said she remained in custody at a north London police
station as inquiries continued.
The
incident came days after the government ordered police forces to increase data-gathering
on Islamophobic attacks.
Video
footage taken by a fellow passenger shows a woman, accompanied by a child in a
pushchair, shouting abuse at two Muslim women, and continuing after the bus
driver comes out of his cab twice to try to defuse the situation.
At one
point the woman in the video can be heard swearing and telling the women to “go
back to your own country”, and she appears to threaten to kick one of the
Muslim women – who is pregnant – in the stomach.
“I will
kick you in the stomach. I will pull that down and kick you, so you never have
a kid again,” she says. “I will donkey kick you. It will be the first time I’ve
ever resorted to violence in public.”
Anyone who
has information that may help the investigation, or who was on the bus at the
time, has been asked to contact the Met
police or Crime stoppers.
