VENNABARI, Bangladesh — The pastor of a Baptist church in Vennabari, Bangladesh, about 62 miles south of Dhaka, said that in early January, local Muslims tied him and his wife up, robbed his living quarters on the church property and gang-raped his wife.
Shankar Hazra, 55, of Chaksing Baptist Church in Gopalganj district said the assailants also desecrated the church building during the Jan. 6 attack.
“A man loomed up from the darkness and thrust the snout of a homemade rifle at my chest and told me to keep mum, otherwise both of us would be killed,” Hazra said. “Around seven to eight people swooped on us and tied me and my wife. They blindfolded my wife and took her inside the house.”
After the assailants left, Hazra managed to untie himself and found his wife lying unconscious on the bed, he said. He added that villagers tried to implicate non-Muslims and portray the attack as resulting from internal conflicts among Christians. Police, influential villagers and local Muslim-owned media are trying to conceal likely anti-Christian motives for the crime, he said, by falsely accusing two Christians and a Hindu of participating — and labeling a local Baptist pastor as the “mastermind” of the attack.
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