DHAKA, BANGLADESH (ANS) – Compass Direct News (CDN) is reporting that a Christian in Bangladesh has been sentenced to one year in prison for “creating chaos” by selling and distributing Christian books and other literature near a major Muslim gathering north of this capital city.

CDN says that a magistrate court in Gazipur district handed down the sentence to Biplob Marandi, a 25-year-old tribal Christian, on Feb. 28 after he was arrested near the massive Bishwa Ijtema (World Muslim Congregation) on the banks of the Turag River near Tongi town on Jan. 21.

“Duty police found Marandi creating chaos as he was propagating his religion, Christianity, by distributing the tracts as a mobile court on Jan. 21 was patrolling near the field of the Bishwa Ijtema,” the verdict reads.

“The accusation – creating chaos at a Muslim gathering by distributing Christian booklets and tracts – against him was read out in the court before him, and he admitted it. He also told the court that he had mainly wanted to propagate his religion, Christianity.”

The Rev. Sailence Marandi, pastor at Church of Nazarene International in northern Thakurgaon district and older brother of Biblop Marandi, told Compass that there was no altercation between his brother and area Muslims, though some may have found his literature un-Islamic and created “chaos.”

Likewise, the verdict makes no mention of any confrontation. “In the verdict copy it is written that my brother admitted his offense in the court,” Pastor Marandi said. “This case being very religiously sensitive, I suspect that his confession statement might have been taken under duress.”

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DHAKA, BANGLADESH (ANS) — Compass Direct News (CDN) is reporting that Buddhist members of an armed rebel group and their sympathizers are holding three tribal Christians captive in a pagoda in southeastern Bangladesh after severely beating them in an attempt to force them to return to Buddhism, Christian sources said.

The report says that those held captive since Friday, April 16, 2010, are Pastor Shushil Jibon Talukder, 55; Bimol Kanti Chakma, 50; and Laksmi Bilas Chakma, 40, of Maddha Lemuchari Baptist Church in Lemuchari village, in Mohalchari sub-district of the mountainous Khagrachari district, some 300 kilometers (186 miles) southeast of Dhaka.

They are to be kept in the pagoda for 15 to 20 days as punishment for having left the Buddhist religion, the sources told Compass Direct News. Local Buddhists are considered powerful as they have ties with the United Peoples Democratic Front (UPDF), an armed group in the hill districts.

“After taking the Christians captive on April 16, the sources said, the next day the armed Buddhist extremists forced other Christians of Maddha Lemuchari Baptist Church to demolish their church building by their own hands,” the CDN story continued. “The sources said Pastor Talukder was bludgeoned nearly to death and had to be taken by wooden stretcher to the pagoda.”

Regional Sub-district Chairman Sona Ratan Chakma told Compass that the “three renegade Buddhists” are being kept in the pagoda for religious indoctrination. “They became Christian, and they were breaking the rules and customs of the Buddhist society, so elders of the society were angry with them,” Chakma said.

“That is why they were sent to a pagoda for 15 to 20 days for their spiritual enlightenment, so that they can come back to their previous place [Buddhism].”

DHAKA, Bangladesh – At the urging of local Muslim leaders, police in western Bangladesh have tortured a pastor and two other Christians for legally proclaiming Christ.

Habibur Rahman, 45, pastor of Boalia Spiritual Church Boalia Ruhani Jamat in Boalia in Cuadanga district, 220 kilometers 136 miles west of Dhaka, said he was about to meet with 11 others for a monthly meeting on evangelism at 8 p.m. on June 8 when local police stormed in and seized him and Zahid Hassan, 25, and a 40-year-old Christian identified only as Fazlur.

The first question the police commander asked him, Rahman said, was, “Why did you become Christian?”

“Using a lot of filthy words, he charged me that I was teaching the Bible and converting people to Christianity in this area,” the pastor told Compass.

In May, a police patrol chief had threatened to seize him at a church meeting but was misinformed about the time it would take place, Rahman said.

The commander who seized him and the two others was a sub-inspector with the name Khaleque on his badge, Rahman said. Police dragged them to a nearby parked vehicle and transported them to Shamvunagar police camp.

“Police told us, ‘We will teach you in the camp how to forget your Christ,’ while dragging us to the vehicle,” said Rahman.

Read the full story at Compass Direct News.

Nearly four months after Muslim villagers furiously beat two evangelists for showing the “Jesus Film,” one of the Christians is still receiving treatment for nerve damage to his hip.

Christian Life Bangladesh CLB worker Edward Biswas, 32, was admitted to Alabakth Physiotherapy Centre on May 5. Dr. Mohammad Saifuddin Julfikar told Compass that injuries Biswas sustained from the Feb. 8 attack in Feni district, some 150 kilometers 93 miles southeast of Dhaka, had led to neurological complications in his hip.

“His hip joint was displaced, and one bone in the hip was fractured,” Julfikar said.

Biswas told Compass that he and 21-year-old Dolonmoy Tripura first showed the film on Feb. 7 in a home in Chandpur village, where they also taught the more than 200 poor and mostly illiterate viewers about the dangers of arsenic in water, mother-and-child health care and AIDS prevention. United Nations Children’s Fund reports say more than 30 million people are exposed to high levels of arsenic in water in Bangladesh and India.

Azad Mia of the same village requested they show the film at his house the following day. They went to his home the evening of Feb. 8, but because one of Mia’s family members was ill they were unable to screen the film. As they returned home, Biswas said, some villagers told them to show the film at their home; the two evangelists suspected a trap.

“At first they tried to sweet-talk us into going to their house,” Biswas said. “On our refusal to show the film, they tried to force us to go. I smelled a rat and again refused to go. Later they forcefully took us deep inside the village.”

About 20 people gathered and began beating them, he said.

Read the full story at Compass Direct News.

Buddhist villagers in southeastern Bangladesh forced Christians to participate in a Buddhist cremation rite for a deceased family member last weekend and demanded money for a post-funeral ceremony.

Uttam Lal Chakma, 55, died last Friday May 15 after a long illness in Dighinala sub-district of Khagrachari hill district, some 400 kilometers 250 miles southeast of Dhaka. A member of Mynasukhnachari Baptist Church in the Babuchara neighborhood, Chakma had converted from Buddhism to Christianity two years ago.

Pastor Vubon Chakma and Christian villagers sought to give him a Christian burial the next day, but a hostile group of local Buddhists forcibly stopped them from doing so, according to a local Christian source.

The source told Compass that a member of the Buddhist group told family members, “He was born as a Buddhist, and he will be buried as a Buddhist.”

Read the full story at Compass Direct News.

DHAKA, Bangladesh – Pilgrims to a massive Islamic conference near this capital city on Sunday Feb. 1 beat and threatened to kill a Bible school student as he distributed Christian literature.

Rajen Murmo, 20, a student at Believers’ Church Bible College, was distributing the 32-page books among Muslims near the school along with 25 other students in Uttara town in northern Dhaka, just a few kilometers from the banks of a river in Tongi where the government claimed that 4 million Muslim pilgrims had gathered. They had massed for the annual, three-day World Muslim Congregation Bishwa Ijtema.

Murmo told Compass that a man with a ragged beard in a loose white garment and white trousers, along with some other men, approached the students and told them Muslims did not abide by the Bible because the Quran had superseded it, rendering it outdated.

“Suddenly some of his outrageous entourage grasped me and asked where I got the books and who gave me the books. They wanted to know the address of my religious leaders and mission, but I did not give them the address,” said Murmo. “If I had given them the address of the Bible college, they would have destroyed it. My blank denial to give information to them made them enraged, and they started beating me. They told me if I do not give the address of the religious leaders and mission, they would kill me.”

The full story is at Compass Direct News.

VENNABARI, Bangladesh – The pastor of a Baptist church in this village about a 100 kilometers 62 miles south of Dhaka said that earlier this month local Muslims tied him and his wife up, robbed his living quarters on the church property and gang-raped his wife.

The Rev. Shankar Hazra, 55, of Chaksing Baptist Church in Gopalganj district, said that before leaving, the assailants desecrated the church building.

The night of the attack, the pastor said, he and his wife, 45, went out to a toilet outside their home at about 2 a.m. on Jan. 6.

“Suddenly 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,” Rev. Hazra told Compass. “Around seven to eight people swooped on us and tied me and my wife. They blindfolded my wife and took her inside the house.”

While Rev. Hazra was tied to a pillar on the porch of his house of corrugated tin and wood, the assailants took the keys of chests and trunks and looted valuables: gold and silver jewelry worth US$500, cash totaling US$300, a mobile phone, television, CD players, all their clothes except his cassock, and utensils.

“They even looted my daughters’ dresses,” Rev. Hazra told Compass. “After looting everything, they gang-raped my wife.”

Read the full story at Compass Direct News.

DHAKA, Bangladesh – Muslims in a village in western Bangladesh have forced two brothers to expel their parents from their home for converting to Christianity.

Ishmael Sheikh, 70, and his wife Rahima Khatun, 55, were baptized on Nov. 9. By the end of the month, Sheikh told Compass, Muslim neighbors in Kathuly village, near Gangni town in Meherpur district, had compelled their two sons to expel them from their house. Meherpur district is 270 kilometers (168 miles) west of Dhaka.

The ailing Sheikh told Compass that his two sons had come under tremendous pressure from neighbors in the village, which was entirely Muslim before the coupled received Christ. The neighbors threatened that the children of Sheikh’s sons would not be allowed to marry anyone from the village if the brothers allowed their parents to remain in the home.

“My sons are afraid that if we go back to home, their sons and daughters will not be married off in the Muslim society,” Sheikh said. “We are the first converted Christians in this village. Neighbors told my sons, ‘Why should your parents live in this village? They do not have right to live here because they are no longer Muslims.’”

Read the full story at Compass Direct.

DHAKA, Bangladesh – Buddhist villagers in southeastern Bangladesh’s Rangamati district last week beat a young father and drove him from his house for converting to Christianity.

The Buddhists in Asambosti, in the Tabalchari area some 300 kilometers (186 miles) southeast of Dhaka, warned Sujan Chakma, 27, not to return to his home after beating him on Dec. 18. Chakma, who converted to Christianity about four months ago, has come back to his home but some nights the likelihood of attacks forces him to remain outside.

He is often unable to provide for his 26-year-old wife, Shefali Chakma, and their 6-year-old son, as area residents opposed to his faith refuse to give him work as a day laborer. Chakma, his wife and son do not eat on days he does not work, he said.

Full story at Compass Direct News.