Toronto chef describes being attacked on the TTC in alleged hate crime

Toronto chef, Sonam Pontsang, has become an online sensation — but not for his cooking.

About a week ago, the 34-year-old posted a video on TikTok, showing a portion of an alleged altercation he says he was involved in at Castle Frank subway station. Since then, his post has garnered more than 100,000 views.

“Somebody shoved [me] from the middle of the stairs, and I had to run as fast as I can, [down the] bottom ten stairs. I looked behind and he’s standing in front of me, and he’s just yelling a bunch of racial slur[s] and telling me, aggressively, to get out of the country,” Pontsang told CTV News Toronto on Tuesday.

On Feb. 28, at around 9 p.m., Pontsang said he was on his way home from his restaurant, Momo Ghar, when the attack happened.

“He’s right in front of my face. Anywhere I move — he’s just stepping in front of me,” he said.

Pontsang said he was trying to avoid a fight, given all he’d heard in recent months about violent incidents on the TTC. He says he was also worried the man, who kept fiddling with his backpack, could be armed. But Pontsang claims the man wouldn’t leave him alone.

“He saw my tattoos and he grabbed my hand and he tried to, like, he took a lighter out of his backpack and tried to torch it, aggressively,” he said.

At that point, Pontsang says — he’d “had enough.” He shook the man off and kicked him, before his alleged assailant took off down the platform.

“I stood my ground and I yelled back at him and said, ‘You have to step out of the subway system right now.’ Like, I didn’t want him to prey on another victim,” he said.

That’s the portion of the interaction captured on the TikTok video. In the clip, you can hear Pontsang yell, “You’re getting out of the subway, see what I mean?”

The man responds, “Get away from me, boy, I’m not a girl.”

Pontsang says he followed the man, but his alleged attacker ended up getting on a passing subway train right before the doors closed.

Within a couple of days, however, Pontsang decided he wasn’t going to let the matter go, and he took his story to TikTok.

“Because I want people to know who the culprit is — who’s the guy.”

Several people commented on the video, claiming they have had similar experiences with the same man.

“I saw this guy! With a lighter in University [Avenue]. He approached my friend and playing with his lighter near him,” one person wrote.

Another poster said, “I saw him at Finch station at 6 a.m., he was threatening randoms as they were going to work, I was well away but he was super loud.”

“One of the challenges we face about repeat offenders on the TTC is that we don’t have the ability to actually ban people. The courts have to do that,” TTC spokesperson Stuart Green told CTV News Toronto.

“Now we do have a court advocacy program, so we will go into courts and will advocate for, you know, stiffer sentences for people who assault transit workers, or who commit crime on public transit.”

But Green says people have to report crimes like this to both the TTC — and police — because they can’t fix what they don’t know.

Pontsang admits he did not report the incident. He adds, however, that he hopes his alleged assailant learned something from their run-in.

“Hopefully, he won’t do it again. Maybe he’ll think twice before approaching any vulnerable people.”

Green says the TTC circulates pictures to staff — privately — of people who are banned from the TTC, and their images can also be found in collector booths.

“If any staff see someone who’s not supposed to be in the system, they will call,” Green said.

As for customers, Green stresses that they shouldn’t wait to report an incident because security video is erased after 72 hours.