Friends of the hardworking, humble immigrant shoved to his death last week in front of the 7 train by a Muslim-hating madwoman today gathered for an emotional farewell in Queens at the Coppola-Migliore funeral home in Flushing.
Sunando Sen, 36, was remember as a man of “quiet strength” by Lorcan Otway, a lawyer and longtime friend, who noted that Sen years ago left Bangladesh to escape oppression, and was involved in human rights issues here, helping Hindus.
Sen’s mentally ill alleged killer, Erika Menendez, 31, has told cops she pushed Sen because she hates Muslims and Hindus.
Matthew McDermott
Farewell for subway push victim Sunando Sen.
“He didn’t have a hateful bone in his body,” Otway said of Sen. “He approached everything with a calmness. The remarkable man he was should teach us a lesson. I wish people could know the greater loss to the community.”
Sen’s body, wrapped in cloth and covered with flowers, lay in a blue-grey casket. Sarker and others recited traditional prayers, chanted and burned incense. They put bananas and rice in his casket, followed by yogurt and milk – a sendoff ritual meant to give Sen what he needs as he travels into the next world, friends said.
Sen had no family here, and his parents in India have died. But he fashioned a family from the friends he made in New York, said Bidyut Sarker Sen’s boss at the Manhattan print shop where he’d worked for 15 years.
"I feel like I lost a family member. The neighborhood, the shop, was his family,” said Sarker, who helped pay for Sen’s burial. “Customers are coming in and crying. "
Sen, whom friends said had recently opened his own printing shop on Amsterdam Avenue, was “a gentleman” and exceptionally smart. He got a scholarship to New York University and earned a master’s degree in economics, and was trying for a PhD at Columbia before dropping out because he couldn’t afford it, friends said.
Sen taught himself graphic design, Sarker said, and was “extraordinarily talented,” Otway noted.
“He was working well below his education,” Otway said.
Sen’s body was cremated at a cemetery after the ceremony.
Meanwhile yesterday, police said they were called by Erika Menendez’s family members at least five times prior to last Thursday’s train-shoving because Menendez had gone off her prescribed meds.
Menendez is being held without bail. She has replaced her court-appointed lawyer Queens lawyer Joseph DeFelice. He did not return calls.
