POLICE have launched an investigation into an alleged hate crime after a SNP campaigner was subjected to racial abuse by a group of men and was left needing stitches after his head was smashed into a wall.
Dr Zohaib Arshad said he was subjected to the alleged attack on Grahams Road in Falkirk on July 20 when he was visiting one of his takeaway shops.
The 39-year-old said a group approached him on the street and asked him when he was “leaving the country” before launching the unprovoked attack, which involved repeatedly punching him and slamming his head against a wall.
It has been reported that Police Scotland are treating the incident as a hate crime and that inquiries into the incident are ongoing.
Arshad stood in the 2024 General Election for the Alba Party for the Falkirk constituency but is now a member of the SNP.
Martyn Day, the SNP MSP for Falkirk East and Linlithgow, raised the “appalling” attack on Arshad earlier this week following the rise in anti-migrant rhetoric in Scotland by the far-right .
Arshad told BBC Scotland that he fears the attack on him would have gone unnoticed had he been any other member of the public.
He also said his family is “terrified” following the attack and that he is being “much more vigilant”.
“My wee boy, he's nine and said 'dad, if I go to school, can they do it to me as well?'” Arshad said.
The businessman recalled the attack as he said he had just parked his car and was walking to one of his shops before the group approached him that evening.
He said: “Two or three guys approached me and said 'when are you leaving the country by the way?'”
Arshad said he tried to walk away, but soon after, one of the men from the group banged his head into a wall.
“I had blood all over my face and in my eyes, and when I was cleaning up the blood from my eyes, one of the guys punched me on my head a few times,” he said.
He added that when he tried to defend himself, one of the men then threatened to stab him.
Arshad explained that despite being outnumbered and with other people in the street, no one came to his aid.
Instead, they got their phones out and started to record the attack.
“Everybody was just filming us,” he said.
Arshad, who practised as a vet in Pakistan, said that he ended up having to patch himself up after the ordeal, as he claims he was told to make his own way to A&E after he called an ambulance.
The businessman added that it took officers 45 minutes to arrive at the scene, by which point the men who allegedly attacked him had left.
He said he ended up calling some friends to see if they had “glue stitches at home” and then stitched his wound up in the back of his shop as he feared leaving the wound open for any length of time would result in an even bigger scar.
Despite the attack and his wife and his mother urging him to move to France where he lived previously, Arshad is adamant he wants to stay in Scotland.
“We cannot leave anything just because of one bad person - defeat is not an option,” he said.
Following the attack on Arshad, a delivery driver in Glasgow was forced to flee after far-right thugs launched a traffic cone at him.
Muhammad Jawad, 31, was working in the Tradeston area last weekend when a group, seemingly coming from the anti-immigration Unite the Clans rally at Glasgow Green earlier in the day, started shouting racist abuse at him.
“I did not speak to anyone or do anything wrong,” he said in a video shared with The National .
“They called me sh*t Asian, sh*t brown guy and shouted ‘kick him out’ and ‘throw him out’.”
A video of the incident shared on social media has also gone viral, with one of the far-right thugs overheard calling Jawad a “sh**tebag”, whilst one of them also launched a large traffic cone at him.
“I was very scared and had to run into a nearby shop to protect myself.”
Over the phone, Jawad described how he hasn’t left his house since Saturday’s incident and has experienced anxiety and depression as a consequence.
Some 15 arrests were made in Glasgow last weekend in connection with the protest , including for possession of an offensive weapon, assault, breach of the peace, obstruction and resisting arrest.
Police Scotland said weapons recovered at the scene of the initial rally at Glasgow Green, which took place near a children’s play park, showed some arrived with the “intention for pre-meditated disorder, violence and intimidation”.
“Extensive enquiries are underway to identify other individuals involved and further arrests will be made,” the force added.
