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…
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