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Elmhurst woman killed in hit-and-run

Elmhurst woman killed in hit-and-run
Photo by Christina Santucci
By Christina Santucci

The son of a 58-year-old Elmhurst woman mowed down by a hit-and-run driver on Queens Boulevard plans to bring her body back to her native Bangladesh for a Muslim burial.

Faisal Riaz, 33, said he had hoped to make the trip Thursday or Friday, but it depended on when authorities released the body of Nisath Hossain to him.

“Without the police clearance, we don’t go anywhere,” he said, standing inside the apartment he had shared with his mother.

Hossain had been crossing Queens Boulevard from the south side to the north at 71st Avenue in Forest Hills at about 10:15 p.m. Saturday when she was hit by a vehicle heading west, police said.

The NYPD has been looking for the driver of a silver minivan that allegedly struck Hossain on the “Boulevard of Death” Saturday night and fled, a spokeswoman for the Police Department said. As of Wednesday afternoon, no one had been arrested in connection to Hossain’s death, police said.

Riaz said his mother had been en route home from her job as a cleaning woman in McDonald’s.

“I wait for her in the bus station but nobody comes,” he said.

Instead, police told him to come to the North Shore University Hospital, where emergency responders had brought Hossain.

“It is unbelievable. I cannot believe my mother is dead,” Riaz said, explaining that one year ago, his father, Kuddus, died of a heart attack.

Hossain had worked at the 71st Avenue location of the fast food restaurant for the past two years and a McDonald’s in Elmhurst for eight years before that, after coming to the United States from the Chandpur district of Bangladesh in 1988.

“She cannot stay at home. She says she will go to work and be happy,” her son said.

He described her as helpful and a good cook.

“Everybody is shocked,” Riaz said.

The Rupasi Chandpur Foundation has been collecting donations to help him bring his mother back to Bangladesh, Riaz said.

The heartbroken only child also planned to bring his mother’s dresses with him to her homeland to give to female relatives, since he has no other family members in the United States.

Reach Managing Editor Christina Santucci by phone at 718-260-4589 or by email at timesledgerphotos@gmail.com.