05 August 2005

TWO BANGLADESHI CHRISTIANS KILLED FOR SHOWING JESUS FILM

Two evangelists in Bowalmari District Faridpur, Bangladesh, were stabbed to death around midnight on 29th July.

Liplal Mardy (35) and Tapan Roy (30) had been showing the Jesus film, as well as health education films, in villages around the area. They had received at least two verbal threats from the head of the local madrassa (Islamic religious school), telling them to stop showing the film. After the second threat they stopped their work and were planning to leave the area, but were murdered before they could do so. The man who threatened them has now gone into hiding.

Barnabas Fund will be assisting the families of the murdered Bangladeshi evangelists.

"This incident is chillingly similar to the killing of Hridoy Roy on 24th April 2003. Hridoy became the first martyr of modern times in Bangladesh, when a group of seven Muslims attacked him with knives, and killed him late at night after he had been showing the Jesus film," said Dr Patrick Sookhdeo, International Director of Barnabas Fund. "Religious liberty in Bangladesh is clearly under threat from zealous Muslims who seek to deny others the freedom to share their faith, using the most brutal methods imaginable."

PRAYER ITEMS

* Please pray for the families and colleagues of Liplal and Tapan. Pray that God will comfort them in their grief.

* Pray for the protection of all Bangladeshi Christians who seek to share their faith with others.

* Pray that the police authorities will act impartially to bring those who have committed this crime to justice.

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Barnabas Fund works to support Christian communities mainly, but not exclusively, in the Islamic world where they are facing poverty and persecution.

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