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The two incidents during broad daylight, have been described by faith groups like the Australian National Imams Council, as a blatant case of Islamophobia.
Ramia Abdo Sultan is a community relations advisor to the council.
"This is reinforcing the notion that Islamophobia is rampant and it is on the rise. We are seeing heightened incidents in attacks on visibly Muslim women in particular. I mean, one of the victims was on her lunch break in a shopping centre, and she happened to be the target because she wore the hijab."
The assaults are believed to have occurred at the Epping Plaza shopping centre in Melbourne's north (last Thursday).
One of the victims describing her attack to SBS.
"This lady came out of nowhere. She punched me right across the face - it was a punch, slap something like that. Slapped me, pushed me on my chest, grabbed my chest, pushed me so hard on the tiles and fell to the ground. When I fell, I felt like every bone of mine broke."
The same offender is then said to have assaulted another woman just ten minutes later, before she fled the scene with an unidentified man.
Adel Salman is a spokesperson for the Islamic Council of Victoria.
He described the attacks as mortifying.
"They're very traumatised by what happened. They sustained physical injuries. They'll recover from those. But it's the mental scarring and emotional scarring as a result of this."
One of the victims telling SBS the attack has left her feeling scared to leave her house, with the scene replaying in her mind.
"Nothing's happened to me like that before. It was my first time. I was born here. This is my country, I'm not safe in my own country."
Ramia Abdo Sultan from the National Imams Council says the public nature of these attacks - in a busy shopping centre at lunchtime - shows they've become increasingly normalised.
["A failure to address these issues and call them out for what they are, emboldens perpetrators to keep committing acts of hate so viciously in full view of the public, so the public is never a deterrent, being in the public is never something that deters them. They have the confidence to actually commit crimes such as this and walk away as if they are completely immune, and this is what's the most concerning."
Victoria Police says there is absolutely no place in our society for discriminatory, racist, or hate-based behaviour and such activity will not be tolerated.
The state premier, Jacinta Allan, shared the same sentiment.
["The reports of the evil attacks on two young Muslim women are just horrific. This sort of evil hatred, in this instance Islamophobia, has absolutely no place."
Shadow Minister for Home Affairs, James Paterson, also weighed in.
He says these alleged attacks on Muslim Australians have no place in our country and any perpetrators must face the full force of the law.
But on the same day as the suspected assaults in Melbourne, there were more reports of anti-Islamic graffiti in Sydney.
Giridharan Sivaraman is Australia's Race Discrimination Commissioner.
"We've got a problem with racism and we need to deal with it. Social cohesion is this word that gets thrown around but in reality, we're not going to get along unless we acknowledge racism exists and we take real steps to deal with it."
The Australian Islamophobia Register received reports from both victims about their attacks.
They say as horrific as they are - they didn't come as a surprise.
But what WAS a major concern to the register's executive director, Dr Nora Amath, is that nobody intervened during the suspected assaults.
"It was the victim's friend in the cafe that made a lot of noise and then made sure the victim was ok after the alleged perpetrator ran off to commit the second act of hate and physical assault, but she said nobody intervened. It was only after the violence itself did people say 'are you ok, we need to get security' but while it was happening, nobody stepped in."
The register says the rate of incidents now are five to six times higher around the country, than they were before the 7th of October 2023.
Victoria Police now reviewing security camera footage, to try and identify the perpetrator.
