‘ISIS student came here to kill’

A Bangladeshi student accused of stabbing a Melbourne father allegedly told a neighbour she had “come here to kill’’.

Police and detectives arrive at the Mill Park home. Picture: Sarah Matray

A Bangladeshi student accused of stabbing a Melbourne father less than 10 days after arriving in Australia allegedly told a neighbour after the attack that she had “purposefully come here to kill”.

Momena Shoma, 24, was charged on Saturday with one count of engaging in a terrorist act after allegedly stabbing Roger Singaravelu in the neck while he was asleep next to his five-year-old daughter in his Mill Park home in Melbourne’s northeast on Friday afternoon.

He was in a stable condition yesterday following surgery at the Royal Melbourne Hospital.

Australian Federal Police Acting Deputy Commissioner Ian McCartney said on Saturday police would allege the woman had become self-radicalised and was inspired by Islamic State.

Ms Shoma arrived in Australia on February 1 on a valid student visa and was staying at Mr Singaravelu’s home as part of a university home-stay program.

Residents of Callistemon Rise in Mill Park yesterday said the attack had shaken the normally peaceful suburban community.

Mary, who did not want her surname published, helped Mr Singaravelu after he was stabbed.

“My husband was outside talking to a friend and Roger opened the roller door and screamed, ‘Joe, I’ve been stabbed’,” she said.

“My husband thought he was joking until he ran across the road and saw all the blood ... So I rang triple-0 and ran across the road.”

Mary said she applied pressure to the wound and spoke to Mr Sing­a­ravelu to keep him awake as they waited for the ambulance.

“He was just saying: ‘I was taking a nap with my daughter ... and we were having a nap on the mattress on the floor and the next thing I wake up from a sharp pain.’ Then he goes: ‘I saw her standing over me with the knife,’ ” she said.

After the attack, Mr Singaravelu was helped by an elderly neighbour who spoke with the alleged offender in the house while she remained in the garage, Mary said.

“There was an elderly man, who just lives a couple of doors up. He was inside,” she said. “He just said she (the alleged attacker) was calm, leaning up against the wall.

“He is Muslim and he was saying to her, ‘This is not what we do, this is not in the Koran. Why are you doing this? Who told you to come here and do this?’

“He said, ‘I’m in no harm, I’m talking to her and this is what she’s saying to me’. And she said to him that she purposefully came here to kill one of us, you know, one of our kind ... That was her purpose. And he was saying to her, ‘You’ve ­ruined your life’.”

When approached by The Australian yesterday, the man declined to be named or to comment.

Mary said the woman yelled something indistinct at the neighbours as she was being escorted away by police. “She was fully in the black burka — all you saw was her eyes,” she said.

Yesterday Ms Shoma’s family denied any links between the woman and terror motives.

“We cannot picture her holding a knife. She is not an aggressive or cruel person,” her uncle, professor Mohammed Aziz, told The Herald Sun. “It is absolutely un­believable.” The family described her as a good student, saying the incident “didn’t make sense”.

Ms Shoma faced Melbourne Magistrates Court on Saturday. She did not apply for bail and she was remanded in custody to ­return to court on May 2.