The Australian Homestay Network, the group that placed 24-year-old Momena Shoma in the home of Melbourne resident Roger Singaravelu, maintains that it has placed more than 40,000 foreign exchange students in homes in Australia and that “an event like this has never occurred.”
The event in question, according to news.com.au, occurred two days after Shoma’s arrival on Feb. 7. Singaravelu, a shift worker, was taking an afternoon nap with his five-year-old daughter, Shayla, in his arms, when when he was awakened by shouts of “Allahu Akbar.” Shoma was standing above him, holding a kitchen knife, which she proceeded to plunge into his neck.
Singaravelu shared his account on the horrific incident in an interview with “A Current Affair:
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She was holding the handle, leaning against me and all she keeping saying was ‘Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar’ for a good four and a half minutes.
I was pleading with her and saying ‘please let go, Shoma, please let go, we will talk’. I told my daughter, ‘run, Shayla, run!’”
He managed to grab hold of the knife, which had penetrated his neck to a depth of more than an inch, explaining “if she’s going to push more, I know that I’m going to die.”
He then ran outside and sounded the alarm to his neighbors.
Shoma, a Bangladeshi Muslim, has been charged with attempted murder and engaging in a terrorist act. So far, no charges have been filed on behalf of the Singaravelus’ young daughter, who was understandably traumatized by the incident. The child now insists she can see blood on the walls and dreams that her parents are dead.
As for Shoma, prosecutors say she displayed erratic behavior before moving in with the Singaravelus. Magistrate Charlie Rozencwajg is quoted as having Melbourne Magistrates’ Court that she had practiced stabbing a mattress in the home of a Melbourne she had lived with previously, adding, “they felt intimidated enough to go to whoever organised [Shoma’s placement in their home], saying, ‘We’re scared, we don’t want her to continue living with us.”
Rozencwajg added that Shoma was “responding to a call by [Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi] to attack” Australians on their own soil.
(h/t Bare Naked Islam)
