WASHINGTON, Nov 18: A Pakistani diplomat was harassed and abused at the weekend in New York in what appears to have been a hate incident, though the police did not lodge a report.

The diplomat who underwent this unpleasant experience, “all too common since Sept 11” was Rizwan Khan, press counsellor at the permanent mission of Pakistan to the United Nations.

The incident took place in Queens, a New York borough, when the diplomat and her husband were waiting in their car at a red light. A man, waiting in the next lane, suddenly stepped out of his car and began to abuse the couple and making obscene gestures. There seemed to be no reason for the outburst, except that the couple appeared to be Pakistani or Middle Eastern.

The police station Ms Khan went to, in order to report the incident, which she considered a “hate crime”, did not wish to register a report, because it did not have a computer, “something hard to believe,” and advised her to go to another station which she did not do because of the distance and the inconvenience.—APP