Protests against Latif Siddique`s release

Staff Correspondent: Hefazat-e-Islam and some other like-minded Islamic organisation have protested the release of former ICT Minister Latif Siddique.

They staged the pre-scheduled protests programme and burnt the effigy of the former Minister Latif Siddique from a demonstration programme in front of the Baitul Mukarram National Mosque on Friday noon.

Hefazat-e-Islam leaders and activists demonstrated demanding Latif Siddique’s detention at that time.

The agitated Islamic leaders also demanded to hang the former minister.


However, security was beefed up in capital’s Baitul Mukkarram Mosque area to avert any untoward incident following the protest programme.

Additional policemen were deployed in around the Baitul Mukarram Mosque and many points of Purana Paltan, Dainik  Bangla intersections. Plain dressed detectives were deployed there.

Earlier on Wednesday, Dhaka City unit Hefazat-e-Islam Convener Moulana Nur Hossain Kashemi declared the protest programme.

The former Posts, Telecommunications and ICT Minister Abdul Latif Siddique was released on bail on June 29.

He has been freed on bail from BSMMU prison cell around 4.45 pm on the day, days after he had obtained bail in all cases filed against him for hurting people`s religious sentiment.

On November 25, 2014, a Dhaka court sent the former Minister to jail in the case and he was returned from New York on November 23.

Abdul Latif Siddique was expelled from the cabinet and his own party Awami League for his derogatory comments against hajj, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina`s son Sajeeb Wazed Joy, Tablighi Jamaat and expatiate Bangladeshis in New York.

At a program organised by Awami League Tangail unit in the USA on September 28, Latif Siddique, who was in New York as part of the PM`s entourage in the 69th United Nations General Assembly, said he was against hajj and Tablighi Jamaat more than he detested the Jamaat-e-Islami.

“Hajj is waste of manpower,” he said adding, “Those who perform hajj do not have any productivity. They deduct from the economy, spend a lot of money abroad.”

Those in Tablighi Jamaat do not have anything else to do but block roads during a rally, he commented.

A video clip of him talking spread over the internet kicking up a storm, but the remarks about the hajj in particular touched some raw nerves.

risingbd/ DHAKA/ July 3, 2015/ Azad/ Mahfuz