Cop's Muslim Aunt Stabbed To Death In Queens, Family Believes Possible Hate Crime

An NYPD officer’s aunt was stabbed to death while taking a walk with her husband in Queens Wednesday night, and the victim’s family believes it could have been a hate crime.

Nazma Khanam, 60, was walking around 9 p.m. in Jamaica Hills when she was stabbed in what may have been an attempted robbery. She was taken to a Jamaica Hospital but pronounced dead, PIX 11’s reported.

Khanam’s husband was reportedly a block behind her when the stabbing took place.

"Her husband was behind her one and a half blocks away and he didn't see nothing," Mohammed Rahman, a nephew of the victim, told the local television station. "She's just crying or something, 'Somebody kill me, somebody kill me,' and he's coming to help. He didn't realize somebody stabbed his wife."

Khanam was wearing her traditional Muslim garb and her family reportedly believes the attack may have been hate crime. However, Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said there was no evidence to call the incident a hate crime.

“I don’t think as a 60-year-old woman she has any enemies,” Jamaica Hills resident Durud Miah told NBC 4.

Khanam’s death comes three weeks after a New York man allegedly shot and killed a Queens imam and his friend in broad daylight, an incident that has kept the city’s Muslim community on edge. Oscar Morel faces charges of first and second-degree murder, as well as a charge of second-degree criminal possession of a weapon, in the death of Imam Maulama Akonkee and his assistant Thara Uddin following services at an Ozone Park mosque.

The NYPD Muslim Officers Society confirmed Khanam was the aunt of an officer on Twitter early Thursday morning, saying: “Let’s catch the perp.”

The investigation is still ongoing and according to NBC 4 a crime scene unit was looking for forensic evidence early Thursday morning.