Leah Cornish-Ward walks through town in her leopard print dress, attracting angry eyes from men and women alike.

She grins and adjusts her head scarf. A stranger stares and shakes her head.

Leah’s smile belies the anger rising in her chest as she holds her head high and continues walking.

Three men ride their bike towards the 44-year-old, point at her hijab and yell at her.

“Have you got a bomb under that?”.

An ex-soldier, the Melbourne-born Muslim isn’t in the mood for abuse.

“I told them to f*** off,” she says, recalling the restaurant outing in York, Western Australia, last week.

“I’m so used to this, I can’t even be bothered with these people.”

Since last month’s anti-terror raids, attacks on Muslims have been “relentless” and “disgusting” with incidents more widespread than reported, police say.

Senior Sydney police officer Inspector Paul Albury has condemned the latest round of threats and taunts thrown at Muslims.

Social media have been a breeding ground for hatred, he says.

As well, students travelling to university have been harassed by abusive commuters and followed from one train carriage to another.

And women seem to bear the brunt of the abuse.

“It’s targeting women, which is just mind blowing,” he tells AAP.

His comments follow the charging of a man with the verbal abuse of two Muslim women in Newcastle.

In Sydney another man was charged for sending threatening messages to an Islamic organisation.

A Muslim school in Sydney’s southwest was recently put into lockdown after an intruder entered wielding a knife, while a Brisbane mosque was defaced with messages of hate.

“They have to be subjected to this rubbish each and every day and it’s disgusting,” Albury says.

“It almost feels like some expect to be abused.”

In the six years Leah has been a Muslim, this expectation has been met for the Perth-based woman.

“I really believe one day I’m going to be injured or killed,” she says.

“I just can’t shut my mouth, I stick up for myself.”

Her pregnant friends and mums with bubs, though, have to tread carefully.

Too scared to leave the house, they call on friends to join them to get groceries or go out.

Since the terror raids, Leah says her friends have sensed a changing atmosphere.

“[Racists] are getting emboldened,” she says.

“Some of them are real demons; they are so far gone with the hatred they don’t care who they take it out on.”

But she says Muslims shouldn’t cower.

“Get out, strut your stuff like Saturday night fever. Be proud, we are Muslims and we are meant to have faith in God.”

It’s not just women wearing hijabs who have been the target of taunts.

Arif Khan, from Wollongong, says just last week he was publicly vilified in the “loudest and most threatening 20 minutes of screaming I’ve ever heard”.

The 26-year-old from Afghanistan says he was told to “go back to Syria to fight” because he was a “terrorist” and “f***ing dirty Muslim who needs to be sorted out”.

“I’m just tired of all this,” he said.

Arif alerted police, who say many victims of racial abuse have become apathetic about reporting such crimes.

Albury, who oversees Campsie Local Area Command in Sydney’s southwest, says he often hears second-hand accounts of harassment and intimidation through advocacy groups.

Unfortunately, he says, police can’t act without community support, which includes reporting incidents.

“It’s not rhetoric, it’s real. We want to do something about this,” he says.

And that starts with educating people about bias crimes.

What someone might think are nasty words with no lasting impact, could have repercussions on victims and their families.

Police fear victims of bias crimes could take the law into their own hands.

“It’s not helping community harmony,” Albury says.

“We are hoping it will not lead to violence.”