The subway rider apparently randomly stabbed by a sick smiling straphanger is a hardworking Manhattan restaurant worker who was coming home from a long shift when attacked, a pal said Tuesday.

Roberto Gaspar, 25, was simply looking down at his phone when the violent stranger approached him from behind on a No. 7 train at the 111th Street station in Corona, Queens, on Sunday night, according to his friend and police sources.

The unidentified attacker – captured in a surveillance image smiling broadly – then plunged an “unknown sharp object” once into Gaspar’s neck and twice into his back, cops said. 4

Gaspar was taken to New York Presbyterian/ Queens Hospital, where pal Tomas Calel, 35, told The Post he now is hooked up to a ventilator, unable to speak.

“He is serious. He can’t

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