Community leaders and local elected officials will hold a prayer vigil tonight for Bimal Chanda, the Fordham resident who was fatally beaten two weeks ago in the stairwell of his apartment building on West 190th Street. The service will be held outside of Monroe College, 2501 Jerome Ave., at 6 p.m.

Community Board 7 member Mohammed Ali, who was a close friend of Chanda’s, is organizing the rally to draw attention to the recent uptick in neighborhood crime, and the vulnerability of immigrants to attack. He believes Chanda, a native of India, was targeted because of his ethnicity.

The outbreak in violent crime attracted the attention of city politicians, who met last week to discuss tactics to curb violence.

The same week that Chanda was killed, another man was stabbed to death in an apartment building just around the corner. Last week, a man was shot to death on Bainbridge Avenue, a four-year-old boy was shot and critically injured in a botched robbery in University Heights, and in another incident, a gunman opened fire at Bronx-Lebonan Hospital.