Agencies/Dhaka
Bangladesh has sacked a top minister after his criticism of the pilgrimage of Haj triggered protests by activists who declared him an apostate and set a 24-hour deadline to replace him.
Abdul Latif Siddique, the country’s telecommunications minister, who is in New York accompanying Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, made the comments which were aired by local television stations
The comments drew immediate protests from the hardline group Hefajat-e-Islam whose leaders called him “an apostate” and set a 24-hour deadline to the government to sack him from the Cabinet.
A senior official said Siddique would be removed but he did not comment whether it was linked to demand by the Islamists.
“The decision has been taken to remove him from the Cabinet,” the official from the Prime Minister’s Office said, speaking on condition of anonymity. He added the decision would be effective after Hasina returns home.
At a New York rally where Siddique was the lone speaker on Sunday, he was also heard making critical comments about Hasina’s influential son and technology adviser, Sajeeb Wazed Joy. “Who is Joy? Joy is not part of the government.”
He also slammed the non-political group, Tablig Jamaat, millions of whose followers congregate outside the Bangladeshi capital each year.
He said the around 2mn people who gathered “don’t do any work except halting traffic movement throughout the country,” Siddique said.
There was no comment from the Tablig Jamaat.
Meanwhile, political parties ranging from the ruling Awami
League, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and the Jatiya
Party bitterly attacked Siddiqui, a top aide of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and senior minister in her cabinet for his comments.
The video clip of Siddiqui making the comment at an event organised by the ‘Tangail Samity’ (an association of
expatriates from Tangail district, the home of the minister), in New York was widely circulated on the social media.
Hasina is now in London while Siddiqui is still in New York.
Even the ruling Awami League has sharply reacted to Siddiqui’s free-wheeling comments. Terming the minister as a loose talker, Awami League acting president Syeda Sajeda Chowdhury urged the people not to pay heed to his filthy words.
“Don’t pay heed to what he (Latif) says. There are some talkative leaders and this is possible for them to deliver such words…it’s their freedom. I think you (journalists) wouldn’t accept what he (Latif) said,” she said.
Sajeda, also Deputy Leader of the Bangladesh parliament, said this while addressing a press briefing after a meeting of the Awami League sub-committee on publicity and publication at the Awami League president’s Dhanmondi office in Dhaka city.
On Latif’s comment about Joy, Sajeda said: “Everybody knows who Joy is. There’s nothing to raise questions about it.”
The AL acting president further said some people are trying to distort history to save their existence and they will not succeed.
Awami League leaders Dr Hasan Mahmud, SM Kamal Hossain, Asim Kumar Ukil and Sujit Roy Nandi were also present at the press briefing.
Chittagong-based group Hifazat-e Islam responded with a threat on Monday night saying, “Siddiqui’s fate will be similar to exiled authors Salman Rushdie and Taslima Nasreen if adequate measures are not taken against him.”
Jatiya Party chairman and former Bangladesh President Hussein Mohamed Ershad issued a statement calling for
immediate expulsion of Latif Siddiqui, who, he said, hurt the feelings of millions of Muslims not only in Bangladesh but also across the world.
Ershad also demanded his trial saying, Siddiqui has grossly violated the
Constitution.
