Gentle retiree who ‘never killed a cockroach’ dead in apparent argument over Queens parking spot

A gentle Queens retiree who literally wouldn’t hurt a mouse was killed in a random argument with a stranger over a parking spot, according to police sources.

Cops are still looking for the man who punched and shoved 76-year-old Mohammd Zaker Hossain to the ground in front of his accountant’s office April 5, delivering a mortal blow to his head. He died three days later.

On Sunday, dozens of Hossain’s friends and loved ones in the Bangladeshi and Muslim community gathered at 167th St. and Hillside Ave., waving signs and carrying a large banner reading, “We want justice.”

Two days earlier, police released photos of his alleged assailant and asked the public’s help finding him.

“He’s the person, how can I tell you— if I see one cockroach over there, if I tell him, ‘Kill him, kill that cockroach,’ he just let them go. He’ll say, ‘How can I kill?’ He never killed a cockroach,” his widow, Shamema Akhtar, 60, told the Daily News.

Hossain displayed his pacifist streak when a mouse got into their Queens home and his wife urged him to take it outside and kill it. Instead, he released the tiny vermin in a nearby park.

“I was so mad, I scream at him! He says, ‘It’s OK, it’s OK. They’re not going to come back to the house.’ He didn’t kill the (mouse),” she recounted.

Hossain’s gentle nature didn’t spare him on April 5 when, police sources said, he was apparently holding a parking spot on the street for his accountant.

That angered a man who wanted the spot — he stepped out of a black four-door sedan with tinted windows, then punched and pushed Hossain to the ground, knocking the retired restaurant manager unconscious in the process, cops said.

The attacker got back into the sedan and fled.

“I miss him. My upside is down. I can’t close my eyes. I see him beside me. I see he is in the kitchen, still now,” his widow said. “Midnight, I feel him beside me. I feel he is beside me … What I am suffering, I don’t want anyone to suffer the same way.”

Hossain was attacked the same day a 4.8-magnitude earthquake shook the region, his wife recalled.

Akhtar, a chemist, said she was working in her office in Long Island City and he was heading to his certified public accountant’s office, about 10 blocks away from their house. He was fasting for Ramadan, she noted.

“At 2:30 (p.m.) he called me, ‘Hey, I am in the CPA’s office, but he’s not in the office,” she said. Akhtar told him to just hand his tax from to the accountant’s assistant, she said, but her husband decided to wait outside, instead.

Hossain and his accountant Mahmudul Hoque stepped away from working on the victim’s taxes so Hoque could move his car, the tax man said.

They walked out of his office, Hoque tried moving his car and then, unable to do so due to traffic, came back and was shocked to find Hossain on the ground, noting he hadn’t asked the victim to hold a spot for him.

“I didn’t see who pushed him,” Hoque told The News on Sunday. “There was blood on the back [of his head]. He fell on the back. We found he was in a coma.”

Medics showed up to take Hossain to Jamaica Hospital with head trauma. Akhtar got a call that her husband had fallen and possibly had a stroke.

She rushed to the hospital and saw him intubated. “I touch, I hug him, I stay with him,” she said.

Then the police started to show up, asking if she suspected anyone.

“I said, ‘No, I don’t suspect anybody. Probably he is fasting, he just fell.’ The police officer said, ‘No, somebody pushed.’ I said, ‘No, nobody going to push him. He is the person, if you kick him, he is not going to say anything. He is that kind of person.’”

She added, “They said, ‘No, this is the truth. Somebody pushed him.’”

The next day, police provided her with more details, describing what they knew about the attack.

“He was never afraid. I told him, ‘Don’t go out, it’s dark. He would say, ‘Nobody going to touch me. Nobody going to hurt me,’” she said. “He said, ‘Nobody going to do anything to me. I’ve been here in this country 40 years. Nobody going to touch.’ He wasn’t afraid.”

Akhtar was also surprised to hear reports that he was attacked over a parking spot.

“Totally wrong. I know him 35 years. He would not do that. He would not argue with anyone,” she said.

Akhtar and Hossain came together through an arranged marriage 35 yeas ago, she said. He came to the U.S. first, and she followed him two years later.

Hossain would send his earnings back home to feed the poor in Bangladesh, helping fund a house for orphans.

“All money, he sent to the country, the poor people,” she said. They had no children.

More than 700 people showed up to his funeral, sharing words of consolation and telling Akhtar that he was heaven-bound because he died during the month of Ramadan as he fasted.

“Everybody said he was going to go to the heaven. Everybody says, ‘Don’t worry, don’t cry about him. He’s going to go to heaven.’”

On Sunday, members of the neighborhood’s Muslim community gathered alongside Akhtar to call for justice.

“We are American. We need justice for all of us,” said Imam Rafiqul Islam.

Added Mohammed Fakrul Islam Delwar, president of the American Bangladeshi Business Alliance, “He was a friend to many … This community is a very peaceful community. At the same time we are united and we [will] not rest until we have an answer on how it happened and the perpetrator has been arrested.”

At one point, NYPD Capt. Mo Tsang, the commanding officer of the 107th Precinct, addressed the crowd.

“I am sorry for the loss of Mr. Hossain,” he said. “I know this is a tragedy and a heinous crime and I promise we will bring justice.”

Cops are asking anyone with information to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS.

Hoque said he and the victim had been friends for more than 30 years.

“I hope they will catch [him],” the accountant said of the attacker.