Police have arrested Obaidul Islam, 28, in connection with the attack yesterday on Luke Sarkar, a Bangladeshi pastor, reports The Daily Star. An attempt was made to cut the 50-year-old’s throat, but he escaped with non-life-threatening injuries.
Islam is an active member of Shibir (the student wing of the illegal militant Jamaat organisation), the police stated.
Pastor Sarkar of the Faith Bible Church of God told bdnews24 that two weeks ago two youths had phoned him to say they were interested in hearing his sermons. Yesterday three youths arrived by motorcycle at his home in Pabna, a town in the north-western part of the country, unannounced, and carried out the attack.
“The three sat on the drawing room for a while. Then they suddenly attacked me and tried to slit my throat with a knife,” Sarkar said.
The attack comes a week after an Italian aid worker was shot and killed in the capital Dhaka, when three men rode by him on a motorcycle. On Friday 2nd October, a Japanese businessman, Kunio Hoshi (66), was shot dead in Rangpur, over 200 miles north of Dhaka, again by men on a motorcycle. A group claiming to be Islamic State claimed both deaths, and warned of continuing ‘security operations against nationals of crusader coalition countries’.