Another day laborer identified only as 37-year-old Sultan said that when local Muslims took him to the mosque a few days ago, he won approval to go outside to perform ablutions [ritual washing] before prayer. Once he had washed his hands and legs, he said, he snuck away.

“Some 50 to 60 people surrounded my house, and some of them came to me with knife drawn,” he said. “When they dragged me to the mosque, they tore my shirt. They tried to change my faith, offering lots of financial incentives.”

Sultan said the Muslims have declined to hire him for any work, taken his cooking utensils, vandalized his house and threatened to burn it down.

“How will I live?” he said. “I am out of my mind with worry. Leaders in our locality threatened to cut my tendon. They say, ‘This is an Islamic country, why have you become Christian?’”

A laborer identified only as Motaleb, 38, said village Muslims came to his house with cooked rice and meat.

“They gave me sweetmeat,” he said. “They said, ‘What has Christ given you? We will give you many things, if you come back to Islam.’”

Motaleb said the Muslims pressured him into returning to Islam after they forcibly took him to the mosque. “They do not allow me to go to the local market to buy or sell anything,” he added. “I do not get any work. Whenever our little kids go to other peoples’ houses, neighbors beat them.”

On June 26, two weeks after the converts in Durbachari village were baptized, Muslim villagers attacked and severely beat them. On June 27, they gave the Christians a 24-hour deadline to leave the village or face further beatings and the destruction of their homes. Last-minute intervention from local officials provided temporary relief; officials also agreed to station a special police force in the village for three months, but the officers left after only a week.

Offering Money

Bangladeshi Christian leader Edward Ayub said he was gravely concerned about the tactics of the village Muslims and Tabligh Jamat missionaries, terming the actions “social and religious tyranny.”

“Some Christians changed their faith under social pressure, not from the bottom of their heart,” he told Compass. “Changing faith forcefully is not the way of preaching any religion. It is a flagrant abuse of religious rights and violation of the Bangladeshi constitution, where it is written that every citizen has the freedom to practice or change his or her religion.”

Another local Christian leader, Albert Adhikari Hirak, said a Muslim cleric has repeatedly questioned and threatened Barek Ali, a 35-year-old rickshaw driver, “asking how much money he received for his conversion and demanding that he abandon his Christian faith. Ali denied receiving monetary incentives.”

Barek Ali said he still has faith in Christ. “Local people are putting lots of pressure on me and threatening me to become Muslim,” he said. “Secretly I try to meet with the believers, but local Muslims are staking out my every movement. I am leading a fugitive life in faith.”

Hatem Ali, a 23-year-old itinerant fruit seller, said he was forcibly taken to the mosque on August 8 as he returned home from his small business and was only released on August 13. The imam of the mosque and the Tabligh Jamat fed him something that made him senseless, he said, and they prohibited him from coming home.

His uncle, Motaleb Hossen, went to the mosque but was not allowed to see him. Peeping through the window the night of August 8, however, Motaleb Hossen saw that Ali was sleeping on the floor with Jamat missionaries surrounding him. Mosque keepers also prohibited his mother from seeing him that night and the next day, Adhikari said.

“Jamat people used abusive language against her and also threatened to attack her physically if she goes again,” Adhikari said. “They forced him to accept Islam and he ‘became Muslim.’”

Copyright 2007 Compass Direct News