Muslim Accidentally Wins Prize for Scariest Halloween Costume

TAMPA BAY - A recent new hire at Sampson & Hampson Associates has won the top prize in the Scariest Halloween Costume contest, an annual company tradition. Hamed Qureshi, 24, a Junior Financial Analyst, claims he didn’t even intend to participate in the contest.

“Honestly, I woke up super late and didn’t have time to clean-up my beard,” Qureshi said, “and half-way through the drive I realized I was still wearing my pyjamas.”

Qureshi has a habit of wearing shalwar kameez, an outfit popular in South Asia, to bed every night. “They’re so comfortable man,” he said excitedly, “Like the cotton breathes easy.”

When Hamed showed up to work, his co-workers began high-fiving him and telling him that “the costume will give them nightmares for weeks.” Hank Swankman, 47, felt that Qureshi truly was terrifying. “I need to ask him where he got his costume from. My teenage kids are always looking for the next scary costume and I think this is gonna be huge.”

Samantha Smith, 21, an intern at the company, was immediately inspired. “I think Hamed’s costume was great… I’m definitely going to customize my own version when I go trick or treating tonight.” Smith later showed the team pictures of her Halloween outfit, which featured a fake long beard and shalwar kameez, but for some reason it showed more skin in order to be sexier. “It was between this, a sexy lion or a sexy penguin. The sexy bearded terrorist is where it’s at.”

Qureshi grew angry for receiving so much praise of his “costume.” He kept shouting “Halloween is Haram!” throughout the day but that only earned him further accolades from his co-workers for diving deep into his character. Hamed later embraced the prize as he had received a $25 gift certificate to Dairy Queen.

Runner-up for the prize was Aminpreet Singh, with his “Osama bin Laden” outfit. Singh was unavailable for comment as he had sent in a resignation letter later that day.