A Christian pastor escaped a murder attempt when three Islamic fanatics tried to slit his throat at his house in Pabna district, northwest Bangladesh Monday morning.
Fifty-year-old Luke Sarkar, a priest at Pabna's Baptist Mission's Faith Bible Church of God, managed to escape a knife attack by three unidentified persons who came to his house pretending to be students of Christianity. He suffered minor injuries on his neck.
"I don't know details about their identity ... They expressed interest in Christianity and wanted to convert," Sarkar told Ucanews. "As the conversation proceeded, my wife moved to another room. Suddenly, one of them pressed my mouth and the other two tried to slit my throat. As I started screaming, people gathered around and they fled quickly."
Bangladeshi police detained one of the suspects Tuesday morning. Authorities said that the suspect was an active member of the radical group Jamaat-e-Islami's student wing,
"Twenty-year-old Obaidur Rahman was detained on a tip-off around 9am from Awtaparha Village in Ishwardi," a police official said, according to bdnews24.
The attack comes amid fear and anxiety among foreigners in Bangladesh following the murder of an Italian air worker and a Japanese agricultural executive in Dhaka in the past two weeks.
The Islamic State claimed responsibility for both attacks, reported the Associated Press. The Bangladeshi security agencies, however, refuted the Islamic States' claims, saying that there is no evidences to link the terror group with the attacks.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina blamed opposing parties BNP and Jamaat for the recent attacks, saying that they are trying to destabilize the country.
"BNP and Jamaat have definitely abetted these murders in an attempt to overshadow Bangladesh's achievements," she said, according to bd24news.
