'My son has heart of a lion', says 'proud' father of Pak man who stabbed 2 in Paris

Father of Ali Hassan, an assailant who allegedly stabbed two persons using a meat cleaver outside the former Paris office of the Charlie Hebdo magazine last week, has said he is 'proud' of his son for his ‘brave’ act. According to media reports, the father of Pakistani terrorist also praised his son for doing 'a great job' and said he is 'very happy' about the attack. "My son has the heart of a lion,” he told his interviewer.

The French government, however, has condemned the stabbing on Friday outside the former office of the satirical magazine as an act of 'Islamist terrorism'.

On 25 September, two people were severely injured near the former office of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, following which the Pakistan-born Ali Hassan claimed responsibility for the attack, citing the republication of the Prophet Mohammed cartoon as the reason. He seriously injured two employees of TV production agency Premieres Lignes, whose offices are in the same city centre block that used to house the magazine Charlie Hebdo.  The magazine had shifted its office after the January 2015 attacks on Charlie Hebdo, a policewoman and a Jewish supermarket that left 17 people killed.

The latest stabbing attack came days after Charlie Hebdo republished the caricature of Prophet Mohammed to mark the start of the trial of 14 people accused of helping the two terrorists who carried out a gun rampage at the former offices of the satirical weekly in 2015.

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Father appeals to Pakistan govt for safe return of his son

Ali Hassan's father claimed that Hassan was a good son who prayed regularly and attended Milad twice a year. He said that his son was a follower of Muhammad Ilyas Qadri, a Pakistani Sunni Muslim scholar and founder of the Dawat-e-Islami organisation, which has established a chain of madrasas across Pakistan and abroad. The attacker’s father also appealed to the Imran Khan government and other Islamic countries to help bring his son home. "He has done service in the cause of Islam and we are a Muslim country,” he told the Pakistani channel.

Ali Hassan’s father is a farmer and lives in the small town of Mandi Bahauddin in Punjab. He said that Ali Hassan had gone to France two years ago and out of his five sons, three are abroad. Two in France and one in Italy the father informed.

READ | Paris cleaver attack suspect confesses to stabbing people near Charlie Hebdo office

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(Image credit AP)