Manhunt after train passenger 'stabbed multiple times in back' by man in random attack

Police launched a huge manhunt after a man was left fighting for his life when he was stabbed multiple times by a stranger on a train.

Roberto Gaspar, 25, was checking his phone on the subway in Queens, New York on Sunday night when an attacker suddenly struck. The suspect “stabbed him multiple times in the back with an unknown sharp object,” the NYPDsaid, before fleeing. Gaspar was rushed to hospital in critical condition. CCTV released by police show the suspect, dressed in a black hoodie, smiling as he walks down the train carriage. He is described as slim, light-skinned and aged between 20 and 25.

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“He is serious, he can’t talk,” his friend Tomas Calel told the New York Post. “He’s in the ICU. He’s hooked up to machines.”

Gaspar, who works 10-hour long shifts at a Manhattan restaurant to send money home to his family in Guatemala, never saw his attacker. “I feel bad for him,” Mr Calel said. “He didn’t see anything. He doesn’t know who did it.”

“I’m angry. He didn’t do anything wrong,” Mr Calel added. “I believe [the attacker] is a bad guy. Why did he do that? I want them to catch this guy” he said.

The stabbing has left Mr Calel scared to use the subway at night, which he uses to travel home from work.

The NYPD are now urging the public to come forward if they have any information that may help them identify the suspect wanted in connection with the attack.

It comes just weeks after 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska was fatally stabbed on a train in Charlotte, North Carolina, by Decarlos Brown Jr - an attack prosecutors have charged as first-degree murder.

Ms Zarutksa, who fled Ukraine to escape the war, was on her way home from working at a local pizzeria when she was attacked.