Muslim man forced off London Underground after commuter accuses him of acting 'suspiciously' with an iPad

The incident came after a Muslim student was allegedly thrown off a National Express coach because he 'looked shifty'

(Oli Scarff/Getty Images)

A Muslim Tube passenger has reportedly been forced off a train after a commuter accused him of using an iPad suspiciously.

Witnesses told the Evening Standard he was told to leave a Piccadilly Line train on Tuesday evening because he switched off the device when someone looked at it.

A passenger called Jonny said: “There was a guy stood up, dressed smartly with a man bag…he was asking someone who looked Arabic to get off the train amongst other things because he felt threatened by him.

"Apparently he had turned off his iPad as the smartly dressed man had looked at it, this was deemed to be ‘suspicious’ in his eyes."

Several passengers intervened to defend the “shocked” passenger and reportedly called the accuser racist but the man got off the train shortly afterwards.

British Transport Police is encouraging victims of or witnesses to hate crime on public transport across the UK to come forward.

It was the latest in a string of incidents involving Muslims and non-Muslims alike on public transport in Britain in the wake of the Paris attacks.

Tell Mama, which collates reports of Islamaphobic hate crime in the UK has recorded a spike in discrimination against Muslims since the Paris attacks, mirroring similar rises after terrorist atrocities around the world.

A stretch of motorway near Glasgow was closed on Friday night as police swooped on a bus where a passenger was feared to have a bomb.

Calum McGregor, who had raised the alarm, told STV: “My partner and I became aware of a passenger behaving suspiciously with a device in his lap.

”I got up under the pretence of looking for the toilet and saw he appeared to be attaching pipe-cleaner wire to a large oblong battery.”

Fellow passenger Chris Barron, a US-born musician, had actually been re-wicking his e-cigarette at the time and was astounded to discover he was the source of the scare.

Scottish police confirmed the incident was a false alarm but said it was raised with “good intent” and urged the public to remain vigilant.

Such incidents have not been confined to the UK – terror police in Sweden were called when a group of bearded men in dark clothes were seen raising a black flag in October.

Officers arrived to find a meeting of the “Bearded Villains”, an international organisation for the appreciation of facial hair.