Police in Bangladesh arrested three Muslim men on April 30 in connection with a late-night assault on an Oblate missionary and a robbery at a Catholic church in the countryʼs capital, authorities said.
Officers raided the area on the night of April 30 and detained the suspects, according to Tanvir Ahmed, deputy commissioner of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police. Ahmed said the men had prior robbery cases against them and that police were continuing to investigate.
“The Christian community was celebrating Easter Sunday a month ago and the robbers thought the father had extra money, so they committed this robbery,” Ahmed told EWTN News.
According to police, the men arrived at the church on a rickshaw; the driver kept watch outside while two others scaled the perimeter wall, cut through a grille, and entered the priestʼs bedroom.
The predawn assault
The arrests follow an attack at around 2:30 a.m. on April 28 on Father Subash Pulok Gomes, OMI, 51, an Oblate missionary who lives in the compound of De Mazenod Catholic Church in Baridhara, Dhakaʼs diplomatic enclave.
The intruders made off with cash, the priestʼs passport, and other documents, according to the police account. Gomes is currently undergoing treatment.
“They beat me and tortured me and tied me up and then fought with me, and my nose and face were injured,” Gomes said.
A day after the incident, the priest filed a general diary with police describing the assault.
“When I was crying, they covered my face with a cloth and beat me,” he said in his statement. “Two unidentified people beat me and took 250,000 [taka; $2,037] and other valuable papers including my passport that were kept in the cupboard in the room.”
According to the statement, one of the assailants called the other “Mizan” — a name commonly used among Muslim men in Bangladesh — and tried to calm the priest before the men left with the cash and documents.
Following the incident, the priests, in consultation with their superior and other Church authorities, filed only the general diary rather than pursuing a formal criminal case.
“For religious and spiritual reasons, I and the Church authorities will not file any case regarding the incident. I request that the incident be recorded in the general diary for future reference,” Gomes said.
A priest told EWTN News that Gomes is now undergoing mental trauma. A second robbery occurred at a Catholic residence on the same night, lay leaders and Church authorities said, expressing concern over the incidents.
A pattern of attacks
The De Mazenod Church has been targeted before. On May 4, 2022, police arrested a 26-year-old Muslim man, Mohammad Nahid Sheikh, for hurling bricks at the church and damaging an image of the Virgin Mary.
In April of that year, a young man attacked a Catholic church in Joypurhat in northern Bangladesh and destroyed statues of Jesus, Mary, and St. Teresa of Calcutta.
More recently, attackers detonated a homemade bomb outside St. Maryʼs Cathedral in Dhaka on Nov. 7, 2025; hours later, another device exploded inside the compound of St. Josephʼs Higher Secondary School and College in the Mohammadpur neighborhood. About a month earlier, on Oct. 8, 2025, a similar device was detonated at the gate of Holy Rosary Catholic Church, founded by Portuguese missionaries in 1677 and one of the oldest Catholic institutions in the country.
In 2001, 10 Catholics were killed and dozens injured in a bomb blast during a Sunday Mass in Gopalganj, in southern Bangladesh, but the incident is still being investigated.
Christians account for less than 0.5% of the population of Bangladesh, and religious minorities together make up around 8% of the more than 180 million people in the Muslim-majority South Asian nation.
Christian leaders demand investigation
Christian leaders are calling for justice. After the latest robbery, representatives of the Bangladesh Christian Association met with priests at De Mazenod Church and demanded a government investigation.
The associationʼs president, Nirmal Rozario, said the incident was very unfortunate and posed grave risks to religious life in the country.
“We condemn this incident and demand a fair investigation from the government into this incident and all the incidents that have happened to Christian minority communities in the past,” Rozario told EWTN News.