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A 70-year-old woman was nearly burned to death in Bangladesh when it was discovered she was planning to be baptized as a Christian in February.
Rahima Beoa from the Muslim-majority Rangpur district, about 150 miles northwest of the capital city Dhaka, suffered burns on 70 percent of her body when unknown attackers set fire to her house while she was inside on Jan. 3, a Christian persecution news agency reported recently.
“The unknown people wanted to burn alive the elderly woman because they came to know that she would be a Christian in the next month,” said Khaled Mintu, a regional supervisor of the Rangpur district of the Isha-E-Jamat Bangladesh denomination, to Compass Direct. “It was a devilish conspiracy to stop her being a Christian.”
Beoa’s daughter and son-in-law, whom she lives with along with their three children, had become Christians two years ago. It is said that she would have been baptized “long ago” except for the fact that she was too weak to travel to the capital city, Dhaka.
Because of villagers’ hostility to converts from Islam, local people are likely to go to the capital to get baptized so that their conversion is not made known. But Beoa was too elderly to make the demanding trip where she needed to walk for miles by foot before catching a bus to the city.
On the night of the attack, her daughter, son-in-law, and two of their youngest children went to the church service. They went at night because all the villagers are day laborers or vendors, according to Compass.
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Beoa and her 9-year-old grandson were sleeping at their home when attackers set their bamboo and wood home on fire.
“The boy managed to escape the fire,” Mintu said. “But the elderly woman was injured and got 70 percent on her body, and the cattle and other stuff of the house were incinerated.”
Mintu added that no relatives or neighbors came to help put out the fire.
A “quack doctor” treated the burned Beoa in another house because the family could not afford treatment in a hospital, said Mintu.
The family and church did not file the case to the police because they could not trace the attackers.
In 2006, the homes of Christians in the area were vandalized by more than 7,000 local Muslims who wanted to evict them because of their faith. But the local government officials and police helped the Christians remain on their lands despite the strong opposition from the Muslim majority.
There are 50 Christian families within two miles in that area. Most of them are of Muslim background, Mintu told Compass.
Bangladesh’s population is 83 percent Muslim, 16 percent Hindu and one percent other religions, according to the CIA World Factbook.
