A young Muslim girl who claimed she had been the victim of a hate crime at a train station and pushed onto the tracks has been accused of making it all up.
The 14-year-old, named only as Sinem, claimed on social media that she had been called a “terrorist” and was then pushed onto the tracks by a stranger who had taken offence at her headscarf at a railway station in the Austrian capital of Vienna.
She wrote on an online anti-discrimination and racism group that she was saved in the “last seconds” by another stranger who pulled her back onto the platform before a train pulled in.
She claimed she took herself to hospital after the alleged incident and police confirmed her parents, who are originally from Turkey, had filed a criminal complaint stating that she had been assaulted.
But now, police spokeswoman Irina Steirer says they are investigating whether it was a false claim after officers could find no trace of anything of the sort happening.
She said: “We have looked through the CCTV and at the time when the incident is alleged to have occurred nothing can be seen on the records.
“Both the alleged victim and the accused are captured on CCTV, but nothing ever happens and they are both simply seen getting on the train.”
She confirmed that police are now investigating whether the girl made it up.
At the time social media went wild, with an anti-discrimination group blaming Austrian Foreign and Integration Minister Sebastian Kurz’s previous call to ban civil servants from wearing the headscarf as a reason behind the attack.
Police say they will now call the girl in for questioning “as soon as possible”. She could even end up being charged with slander and filing a false report.
The case has strong similarities to an alleged hate crime which shocked New York last December.
Yasmin Seweid alleged that three men shouting “Donald Trump!” attacked her on 1st December, trying to pull off her hijab in the New York subway.
But she has since been charged with filing a false report and obstructing governmental administration according to the NYPD, who say they believe she completely made up the hate crime.