Police say they will investigate whether two assaults in Harvard Square by suspected skinheads indicate a larger problem with hate crime in the area.

But, they caution, at the moment it does not seem that the two incidents, which occurred this week within 72 hours of each other, are criminally connected.

Both Harvard and Cambridge police say that witnesses have described the assailants as skinheads.

On Sunday morning, a group of seven men harassed three Quincy House students outside Let's Go Travel on Mt. Auburn St. The students who were attacked described the seven men as intoxicated skinheads,

The group shouted "unoriginal but offensive" homophobic slurs, according to Evan H. Feinberg '02, one of the three students.

Adam R. Kampff '02 said when he turned to confront the group, they became agitated, and one man was physically restrained by others. Following a brief verbal altercation, one man hit Kampff on the forehead with a plastic recycling bin.

Kampff received five stitches at University Health Services to close a one-inch wound.

Two nights later, two men described as skinheads by witnesses attacked a Dunster House senior wearing an Islamic prayer cap near St. Paul's Church at 29 Mount Auburn St., according to police reports. They kicked and punched him, knocking him to the ground. He, too, received stitches.