Bangladesh government has sacked a top minister the country’s telecommunications minister, Abdul Latif Siddique, for describing Muslim Hajj as a waste of manpower.
The minister said: “Hajj is a waste of manpower. Those who perform Hajj do not have any productivity. They deduct from the economy, spend a lot of money abroad.”
The comments of the sacked minister triggered protests by Islamists who declared him an apostate. They set a 24-hour deadline to replace him. The minister made the remarks in New York where he accompanying Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
He was quoted by local radio station as saying: “I am dead against Hajj and Tablighi Jamaat. Two million people have gone to Saudi Arabia to perform Hajj.”
The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party has urged the government to bring Siddique to justice for his “derogatory” comments, the Daily Starnewspaper reported.
“Unless Latif is brought to justice, the people’s wrath cannot be tamed,” senior BNP leader and spokesman, General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir was quoted as saying by the English language newspaper.
A senior government official said that 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.
The Daily Star also confirmed the sacking in its report published on its website.
He also criticised the non-political Islamic group, Tablighi Jamaat, millions of whose followers congregate outside the Bangladeshi capital each year in what authorities called the second largest Muslim gathering after the Hajj.
Siddique was also quoted as saying that about two million people who gathered “don’t do any work except halting traffic movement throughout the country.”
There was no comment from the Tablighi Jamaat. [myad]
