Woman Sought After 2nd Fatal Shove Into Subway Tracks in a Month

Victor J. Blue for The New York Times

The police on Friday at the subway station in Queens where Sunando Sen was pushed to his death on Thursday night, in what witnesses said was an unprovoked attack.

Like so many busy New Yorkers in a hurry to get where they have to go, Sunando Sen peered out over the tracks on an elevated subway stop in Queens on Thursday evening, anxiously awaiting the next train.

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Victor J. Blue for The New York Times

The Bangladesh passport of Mr. Sen, 46. He opened a copying business this year on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

What he did not see, the authorities said, was a woman approaching from behind who had been sitting on a bench and who had been heard mumbling to herself. Before Mr. Sen could react, the woman pushed him into the path of a No. 7 train roaring into the 40th Street-Lowery Street subway station in Sunnyside. Mr. Sen was crushed under the train.

As onlookers screamed, the woman fled the station down two flights of stairs. Her image was captured by a security camera as she ran down Queens Boulevard, casting a wary glance over her shoulder. She remained at large on Friday.

The seemingly unprovoked attack, the second time this month that a man was thrown to his death on the subway tracks, stirred some of the deepest fears of New Yorkers.

"When a murder happens in New York, it can often be dismissed as being in someone else's backyard," said Gene Russianoff, staff lawyer for the Straphangers Campaign, a rider advocacy group. "The subway is everyone's backyard."

The police identified the victim as Mr. Sen of Queens, a 46-year-old immigrant who had been raised in India and who, after years of toil, had finally saved enough money to open a small copying business this year on the Upper West Side.

Ar Suman, one of four roommates who shared a small first-floor apartment with Mr. Sen in Elmhurst, said he was driving a client upstate when another roommate called and told him what had happened. Hoping that the information was wrong, Mr. Suman raced back to the city, only to find that there was nothing he could do — Mr. Sen was dead.

"He was a very educated person and quite nice," Mr. Suman said. "It is unbelievable. He never had a problem with anyone."

Mr. Suman said Mr. Sen was proud when he had saved enough money to open the business, New Amsterdam Copy.

Since the shop opened, he had rarely taken a day off, Mr. Suman said.

"I asked him why do you work seven days a week?" Mr. Suman said. "He told me, 'I cannot hire someone because business is not good.' "

Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said Friday that according to witnesses' accounts, there was no contact on the platform between the attacker and the victim immediately before the fatal shove. He said Mr. Sen was looking out over the tracks when his attacker approached him.

The attack occurred so quickly, with the train already barreling into the station, that the man had little time to react and bystanders had no time to try to help, said Paul J. Browne, the Police Department's chief spokesman.

Mr. Sen was hit by the first car and his body was pinned under the second car before the 11-car train came to a stop.

Investigators released a grainy black-and-white video overnight showing a person they identified as the attacker fleeing the station and running along Queens Boulevard. She was described by the police as Hispanic, 5 feet 5 inches tall, in her early 20s and heavyset. She was reported to be wearing a blue, white and gray ski jacket and Nike sneakers — gray on top, red on bottom.

The subway station was closed overnight as officers from the Emergency Services Unit used specialized inflatable bags to lift the train and recover the victim's remains. The No. 7 line had resumed normal service by the morning rush.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said that such attacks were exceedingly rare, but that statistics did not diminish the tragedy for the families of the victims.

"You can say it's only two out of the three or four million people who ride the subway every day, but two is two too many," he told reporters.

"I don't know that there is a way to prevent things," Mr. Bloomberg said. "There is always going to be somebody, a deranged person."

He added: "We do live in a world where our subway platforms are open, and that's not going to change."

Michael M. Grynbaum and Wendy Ruderman contributed reporting.

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