The forgiving husband of a woman who was gunned down in the Christchurch mosque attack shocked many when he said that he wants to give her killer a hug.
Wheelchair-user Farid Ahmed, 59, said he wants to give his wife’s killer Brentan Tarrant a hug and has no hatred for the Christchurch shooter
She had already led dozens of women and children to safety when she went back into the Al Noor mosque to help her husband.
But tragically the heroic 44-year-old was shot from behind and killed before getting to his aid.
Farid, 59, managed to escape the bloodshed – but later discovered his wife was one of the victims. He recalled: “It was a horrible scene. I saw blood, I saw people injured, I saw dead bodies, people in panic.
“They were pushing one another trying to get out. Mentally, I prepared myself, I told myself to calm down and there was no point panicking – whatever will happen will happen” He narrated
He continued; “I took the chance and I came out slowly and I was expecting that any moment I would be shot in my head from the back. I gently came out further and got outside. My car was parked behind the mosque and I just went behind it and decided to stay there”
At the time he had no idea that his beloved wife was lying dead on the other side of the mosque .
He eventually wheeled himself back into the building and was confronted by a scene of unimaginable horror.
“I saw a man holding his son …. he was screaming, ‘Please help me’, and I saw he had two dead bodies lying on top of him.
He asked me to remove the dead bodies and said ‘I can’t take it’. I found two people lying alive , one was a man from Bangladesh who I knew.
”He was supposed to be taking his two children and newly pregnant wife home to Bangladesh that evening.He saw me and he said ‘I’m finished’. I saw a man from Palestine, bleeding profusely. There were so many bodies.”
Farid was taken outside by police and given the devastating news that his wife had been killed.
