DHAKA, Bangladesh, January 14 (CDN) — 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.’”

The couple went to a shelter used by itinerant minstrels who sing traditional Bengali songs a half kilometer away from their home.

“I got salvation in Jesus,” Sheikh said. “In this shelter without food, I am ready to flirt with death by debilitating illness or by attack by Muslim neighbors, but never will I go back to Islam.”

The couple’s pastor, Jhontu Biswas, has met with their sons several times, most recently on Thursday (Jan. 8), to request that they take their parents back into their home. The sons would like to take them back but cannot because of the pressure from the Muslims, he said.

“Villagers put pressure on Sheikh’s sons that if they take back their newly converted Christian parents in home, their daughters will not be married off in the society,” said Biswas. “His younger son is trying to marry off his daughter who is not mature enough to get married. They are looking for a groom. He cannot take back his parents in the house until his daughter gets married.”

None of Biswas’ own relatives are Christians, and he said none of them are allowed to form any relationship with anyone in the Muslim society. Biswas said that Sheikh is ill and can do nothing but beg for his survival.

“He took shelter in the shelter, and believers in this area give him food,” said Biswas. “How long they will stay here is quite uncertain. Local believers are also very poor, and most of them are day laborers who live on the bread line. So how long will they provide food to him? Both of them are becoming ill day by day for lack of food.”

Framed as Terrorist
In Shoilbari village, five kilometers (three miles) away, a Christian convert from Islam told Compass that an elite Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) force comprising army, police, navy and air force detained him on Nov. 24 after finding bombs and other weapons behind his house that Muslim neighbors had placed there.

“In the evening around 15 to 16 believers along with our Pastor Biswas gathered in our house for Bible study,” said Ahsan Ali, 37. “My wife and three children were also present there. My Muslim neighbors told the elite force that local terrorists had gathered in my house to plan some terrorist activities in the locality.”

The RAB personnel came to Ali’s house and took him to their camp, where they interrogated him with torture, he said. The following morning, RAB intelligence officers came to the village to investigate charges against Ali.

“Elite force personnel asked many people in the village the following day, and they found no criminal activities against me and later released me,” said Ali.

The Assembly of God church began in the area about one and half years ago, with some 230 people coming to Christ since then.

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