Process to remove Latif Siddique finished: Cabinet Secy

All preparations to remove Telecoms Minister Abdul Latif Siddique from the Cabinet have been completed, says a top government official.

Cabinet Secretary Md Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan told reporters on Saturday at the Secretariat that the process of his removal was on.

"A file on this matter will come from the Prime Minister's Office. We will make a summary of that and send it to the President," he said.

"A gazette notification on the removal of the minister will be issued after the President signs it."

Asked how much time the entire procedure would take, Bhuiyan said: "We have done much bigger work in a short timeframe. The gazette notification will be issued only after the President signs."

Siddique, who has been at the helm of the Ministry of Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology, drew widespread condemnation after rubbishing the practice of Hajj and Tabligh Jamaat at a programme in New York on Sept 28.

A video clip of him making that statement kicked up a storm as it went viral on the internet and touched a few raw nerves within his party and beyond.

“So much manpower is wasted over the Hajj. Two million people are now in Saudi Arabia for the Hajj. They have no work or role in production. They only eat and go abroad using the country’s money,” Siddique was heard saying in the video.

Since then, over two dozen cases have been filed against the senior Awami League leader at different courts in several districts of Bangladesh, accusing him of hurting religious sentiments.

The BNP and many Islamist organisations demanded Siddique's immediate arrest. The BNP had also asked the government to punish him under the law.

In an interview given to BBC Bangla from Mexico later, Siddique had stood by his remarks.

“I made the comments on Hajj as a free and modern man,” he said.

Amid the ruckus, the ruling Awami League said its chief Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had decided to sack him from both the Cabinet and the party.

The prime minister, at a press briefing on Oct 3, had put all speculation to rest by confirming that the 71-year-old senior party leader would be removed from her Cabinet.

She had said that the government would not be held to account for anyone's “inconsiderate remarks”.

However, Hasina had not given any specific timeframe for his removal.

Siddique, one of the most senior politicians, is known to be outspoken, and his snide remarks had often landed him in controversies in the past.

He did not even spare his younger brother Kader Siddiqui for “siding with war criminals”, saying the war hero was suddenly trying to become a Razakar – the militia that helped Pakistanis to prevent Bangladesh from emerging as a nation.

He has also been accused of beating up a Power Development Board engineer.

The five-time Tangail-4 MP was in charge of the textiles and jute ministry in the Awami League’s previous term.

He had opposed Sheikh Hasina becoming the Awami League president in the 1980s while she was in exile. Again, he was a strong voice in her support during the military-backed regime in 2007.

Siddique was a favourite of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, an active participant in the six-point movement in 1966 and the mass uprising of 1969, frequently jailed throughout that decade, and an organiser during the Liberation War.

In 1964-65, he was elected the vice president of the Karatia Sadat College students union as a Chhatra League leader.

After Bangabandhu’s murder, he was in jail for six years under the military regime. He was freed after his wife became an MP of the Ershad government.

During his term as textile minister, he wrote a letter to US Ambassador in Dhaka Dan Mozena tersely objecting to his asking managements to allow trade union rights in readymade garment factories.