'Kill him': Muslim man attacked on way to mosque

Samir Raghbat says his oversized puffer jacket was all that stood between him and death when two men tried to "kill him" on his way to a mosque.

Warning: This story contains images of injuries sustained during an assault and may distress some readers.

The men allegedly attacked the 43-year-old on June 24, punching, kicking, and striking him with a knife at a car park metres away from his local Hampton Park mosque in Melbourne's south-east.

In a statement sent to the ABC, Victoria police said: "The exact circumstances surrounding the incident are being investigated".

The father of three told the ABC one of the men asked "Are you Muslim?" repeatedly and when he answered yes, the man was instructed by the other attacker to "kill him" with what Mr Raghbat said looked like a makeshift knife.

The knife that "looked like an icepick" missed the right side of his body by an inch and pierced his jacket instead, Mr Raghbat said.

"God blessed me … my jacket saved me. I swear, and I don't even wear it often," he said.

Mr Raghbat said he approached a group of men when he saw they had left rubbish all over the car park and asked, "What are you doing?" which sparked an argument before the men set upon him.

He said he was attacked for "looking Muslim".

Beneath the jacket, Mr Raghbat was wearing an Islamic thobe, a common garment worn to mosque prayers.

A witness who spoke to the ABC anonymously in fear of also being targeted, said Mr Raghbat defended himself by bravely fighting the attackers as best he could.

But after a while, Mr Raghbat said he thought "it was the end" and began pleading with them for his life to get them to stop.

"He shook my neck for three minutes. I screamed two, three times, 'I can't breathe'," he said.

In CCTV footage seen by the ABC, two men are seen punching and kicking Mr Raghbat multiple times in the head and body, before onlookers intervene and the attackers flee the scene.

The Islamic Council of Victoria (ICV) has condemned the attack, calling it violent and appalling.

"No-one should fear for their safety simply for answering the call to prayer," ICV president Mohamed Mohideen said.

"The circumstances of this attack, a worshipper set upon as he came to pray, are deeply distressing for Muslim Victorians."

"Anti-Muslim hatred is real, it is rising, and it has consequences for people's safety in their own neighbourhoods."

Rise in anti-Muslim hate online

Mr Raghbat has been left with a large mark on his back from the near-miss of the blade, reminding him of the ordeal.

"I am very sad … I don't feel safe in the community," he said.

Mr Raghbat was admitted to Dandenong Hospital with facial bruising, a leg and back injury and emotional distress.

He said his face was so battered and bruised from the beating that when he got home from the hospital, his daughter did not recognise him.

"When my daughter saw me, she ran away and cried," he said.

The event has caused Mr Raghbat to "feel like a stranger to himself".

He said he was emotionally distraught that an attack of this manner could happen in Australia.

The ICV said Mr Raghbat's attack comes amid growing concern within the Muslim community about anti-Muslim hostility.

Research from the Tackling Hate Lab examining online hate in Australia between 2023 and 2026 found online anti-Muslim hate in Australia increased to a new baseline after October 7, 2023 which sparked the war in Gaza, and then even further after the Bondi terrorist attack on December 14, 2025.

The research, which analysed more than 1 million online posts and hundreds of anti-Muslim incidents, found that before October 2023, anti-Muslim hate remained relatively low, averaging 18.2 hateful posts per day.

From October 7, 2023 to March 22, 2025, that average increased to 121.3 posts per day, representing a more than sixfold increase.

In the month following the Bondi terrorist attack, anti-Muslim hate increased more than ninefold relative to the previous month, rising from an average of 205.6 posts per day to approximately 1,917.9.

On the day of the Bondi terrorist attack, anti-Muslim hate reached 7,786 posts, while identity attacks targeting Muslims also rose into the thousands, the research showed.

Islamophobia cases go under-reported, peak body says

The ICV has also been documenting reported cases of anti-Muslim incidents via their Islamophobia Support Service form online, which has seen a significant jump in reported incidents.

Documented cases reported to the ICV rose 650 per cent from 2021 to 2025, according to their 2026 report, Anti-Muslim Racism in Victoria: Trends, Impact, Action.

In 2025, from January to September alone, reported cases more than tripled, rising 229 per cent.

The ICV also documented a total of 13,145 online hate comments and posts across social media in the same year.

It said these numbers only reflected a fraction of the true scale of incidents, with many Muslims choosing not to come forward due to fear, distrust or emotional fatigue.

Under-reporting remains one of the biggest challenges in responding effectively to anti-Muslim hate, according to the peak reporting body, Islamophobia Register Australia.

"We received an average of 2.53 cases reported per week before October 7, 2023, and following October 7, 2023, this increased to an average of 18.97 cases per week, which has been sustained until now," said Aishah Ali, the executive director of Islamophobia Register Australia.

In total, 2,618 reports had been received by the register since October 7, 2023, which worked out to an almost 650 per cent increase in reports nationally from the previous year, she said.

Ms Ali said there was a plethora of reasons why Islamophobia had gone under-reported, including a lack of awareness about reporting organisations.

Recently, Australia's Office of the Special Envoy to Combat Islamophobia, Aftab Malik, launched a national awareness campaign to combat the issue.

"These incidents are becoming increasingly brazen, outlandish and violent," Mr Malik told the ABC at the campaign launch.