A 24-year-old Bangladeshi woman was charged with terrorism after an alleged ‘Islamic State-inspired’ stabbing in Australia’s Melbourne, reports an Australian newspaper.

Momena Shoma, a student and Bangladeshi national, was remanded in custody on one count of engaging in a terrorist act after facing Melbourne Magistrates Court, local police said during a briefing on Saturday, reports the UNB.

She is accused of stabbing a 56-year-old man in the neck while he was asleep at his home in Callistemon Rise, Mill Park, on Friday afternoon, reports the newspaper, The Age.

Police say that she was ‘self-radicalised’.

Victoria Police acting Deputy Commissioner Ross Guenther said comments made by the woman when she was interviewed by police led them to believe the incident was terrorism-related.

‘In the course of some disclosures in the interview it became apparent that circumstances led them to believe it was a terror attack,’ he said. ‘That then saw the Joint Counter Terrorism Team take over.’

The alleged attack was witnessed by the man’s five-year-old daughter, who was not injured.

Police and neighbours said Shoma was wearing a burqa at the time.

Police said the woman was a Bangladeshi national who travelled to Melbourne on February 1 on a student visa and was renting a room in the 56-year-old’s Mill Park home.

A neighbour told the Herald Sun newspaper the man managed to call her and she rushed to his home where she found him in the garage surrounded by a pool of blood.

‘I saw all the blood, it was shocking, I saw so much blood,’ she said.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation cited police as saying Shoma was wearing a black burqa at the time.