Baptism Service Interrupted

In Bangladesh, Christians invited converts from Islam to come to a river to be baptized. Fifty-five new believers came, but so did Muslim protestors. Only six converts were baptized before the protestors’ intimidation brought the service to a halt. When the police arrived, they took the Christian leaders into custody.

For the next three days, Muslims used bullhorns to shout death threats to Christians. Along with other threats, they chanted, “We will peel off the skins of the Christians.”

Muslims sought to punish Christians for inviting people to the baptism ceremony. A believer invited a Muslim neighbor. This illiterate Muslim says that afterward police pressured him into giving his fingerprint as a signature. Police then wrote up a fraudulent testimony under his name, accusing the Christian neighbors of paying the Muslim to attend the baptism service. He denies these charges against his neighbors, and did not even know that the case had been filed.

Meanwhile, large sums of money were extorted from two Christian women. One woman had invited seven converts to be baptized. An official threatened her that if she did not pay a large sum of money, she and her grown daughters would “face trouble.” She borrowed the money in order to pay what he demanded.

Another woman, who had invited eleven people to the baptism service, also was forced into paying extortion money to save her husband’s life. Muslims severely beat him, giving him injuries that required three days of hospitalization.

Pray that the Christians in this village will stand strong in the Lord.

Source: Compass Direct News