Toronto police have disputed an 11-year-old girl’s claim that her hijab was cut by a man wielding scissors as she walked to school last week.

A Toronto police spokesman, Mark Pugash, said on Monday that an extensive investigation had been conducted and police had concluded it did not happen.

The sixth-grader, her mother and her younger brother held a news conference at her school on Friday at which Khawlah Noman said she had been walking to school with her younger brother when a man came up behind her, pulled off her jacket hood and started cutting the bottom of her hijab. She said she had turned around and screamed and that the man had run away. She also said the man had returned a short time later and had continued to cut her hijab from behind before smiling and running away.

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Her mother urged police to treat the incident as a hate crime. The story made international headlines and drew public condemnation from the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau.

“It’s something that received, quite understandably, a lot of media and social media attention and I know it caused significant concern, as it should,” Pugash said.

Pugash declined to say whether the girl had acknowledged that the incident had not happened. He said police would not take a step like this unless they were absolutely confident.

“It is absolutely unusual,” Pugash said.

Ryan Bird, a spokesman for the Toronto district school oard, said officials were “very thankful” that the alleged assault had not in fact happened.

The school declined further comment.