Husne Ara Parvin, 42, went with her husband to mosque last Friday as she did every Friday

Wife Killed in New Zealand Mass Shooting Died Trying to Save Husband in Wheelchair

A woman killed during Friday’s terrorist attack in New Zealand was shot while trying to save other people including her husband, who is confined to a wheelchair, the woman’s nephew said.

Husne Ara Parvin, 42, went with her husband to mosque last Friday as she did every Friday, her nephew Mahfuz Chowdhury told The Daily Star of Bangladesh, Husne’s country of origin.

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According to Chowdhury’s account to the paper, Parvin went to the woman’s mosque while her husband, Farid Uddin Ahmed, went to the men’s mosque. When gunfire erupted in the men’s mosque, Parvin rushed to the scene and was fatally shot while Ahmed survived.

Chowdhury said the couple settled in New Zealand sometime after 1994.

Fifty people were killed in the attack and 36 had been hospitailzed as of Saturday, New Zealand Police said on Twitter.

Image zoom Farid Uddin Ahmed MICK TSIKAS/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

A 28-year-old suspect, Brenton Tarrant, who according to multiple reports was a body builder from Australia, has been charged with murder in the attack. According to The Washington Post, he did not enter a plea Saturday in court.

NBC News and other outlets report that just before the attack began, a man matching the profile of the suspect posted a long online manifesto with anti-Muslim and white supremacist themes.

Image zoom Farid Uddin Ahmed MICK TSIKAS/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

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New Zealand police have announced the attack was carried out by the 28-year-old suspect alone. Three other people were taken into custody during the investigation of the attack, but police don’t believe they were connected to the massacre.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Monday that New Zealand’s cabinet has agreed to tighten gun violence prevention laws following the shooting, NPR reports.

Ahmed told the France-based AFP news agency that he forgives the shooter and harbors no hatred toward him.

“I would say to him ‘I love him as a person’,” Farid Ahmad told AFP. “I could not accept what he did. What he did was a wrong thing.”

Parvin was killed at the Al Noor mosque, which was the first of two targeted by the shooter, AFP reports.

Ahmed described his wife’s heroism to the outlet, saying Parvin helped several people escape after the shooting began.

“She was screaming ‘come this way, hurry up’, and she took many children and ladies towards a safe garden,” Ahmed said.