A man confesses to attacking Italian missionary in Bangladesh
A member of a Bangladeshi extremist Islamist group confessed on Thursday to having organized and personally carried out the attack on Italian missionary Fr. Piero Parolari of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions, PIME, on 18 November in Dinajpur. Deputy police inspector Bazlur Rashid confirmed that Sariful Islam, a member of the Jamaat-ul-Mujiahideen, has confessed the attack, as also another assault on a Hindu temple.
Sixty-four year old Fr. Parolari, is also a doctor who worked in Suihari parish. He had been in Bangladesh since 1985, where he worked at the St. Vincent hospital. The ambush was carried out by three armed men on a motorcycle, who shot him on his way to the hospital. The ambush on the PIME priest confirms a tense atmosphere in the country, where in recent weeks dozens of Catholics and Protestants have received death threats. The authorities are committed to ensuring the safety of the Christian community during the holiday season. Catholic leaders and the various Christian denominations on Thursday met at the Metropolitan Commissioner of Dhaka for talks with top police officials. Nirmol Rozario, secretary general of Bangladesh Christian Association who attended the meeting, told AsiaNews: "We received great reassurance for Christmas celebrations".
Established in 1998, the Islamist group was banned by the local government in February, after a series of attacks carried out against some NGOs. After several months of silence, the group returned to the forefront again in August of 2015 with hundreds of attacks in more than 300 different locations around the Bangladesh. (Source: AsiaNews)
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