NEW YORK - New York City police say they have a suspect in custody in the death of a man who was shoved in front of a speeding subway train.

An NYPD spokesman said Saturday that detectives had questioned a woman and that she had "made statements implicating herself" in the Thursday night killing.

Authorities identified her as Erika Menendez of the Bronx.

The Queens district attorney's office quoted Menendez as saying, "I pushed a Muslim off the train tracks because I hate Hindus and Muslims ever since 2001 when they put down the twin towers I’ve been beating them up."

Menendez has been charged with second-degree murder as a hate crime, the district attorney's office said.

Victim Sunando Sen died Thursday night when a woman who had been muttering to herself on a train platform in Queens suddenly knocked him on the tracks as a train entered the station.

The woman fled after the attack. Police had released security camera video showing her running from the station.

Being pushed onto the train tracks is a silent fear for many of the commuters who ride the city's subway a total of more than 5.2 million times on an average weekday, but deaths are rare, WABC TV reported.

Among the more high-profile cases was the January 1999 death of aspiring screenwriter Kendra Webdale, who was shoved by a former mental patient. After that, the state legislature passed Kendra's Law, which lets mental health authorities supervise patients who live outside institutions to make sure they are taking their medications and aren't threats to safety.