Hifazat chief Ahmed Shafi leaves for India for ‘better treatment’

Hifazat-e-Islam chief Shah Ahmed Shafi has left Dhaka for Delhi to avail himself of better treatment in India.

An aircraft carrying the 95-year-old Islamist leader left Dhaka's Shahjalal International Airport at 1am on Saturday.

Hifazat Organising Secretary Azizul Haque Islamabadi said, "Badwa Hujur (Shafi) is taken to Delhi for better treatment on doctors' recommendation."

 Shafi would be admitted to the Apollo Hospitals in Delhi, he added.

Shafi's two sons, Maulana Mohammad Anas Madani and Maulna Mohammad Yusuf, are accompanying their father.

Shafi, who runs the Darul Ulum Moinul Islam Madrasa at Hathazari, was admitted to a hospital in Chittagong city on May 18 for 'fatigue and respiratory problems'.

He was airlifted to a hospital in Dhaka on June 6  and was taken back to Chittagong on July 10 after treatment.

Ailing chief of Hifazat-e Islam Shah Ahmed Shafi was airlifted to Dhaka for treatment on June 6, 2017.

Radical Islamist group Hifazat has also come into focus multiple times since 2013 after unleashing mayhem in Dhaka's Motijheel in the name of protest against the Shahbagh movement, calling them 'atheist bloggers'.

They also demanded changes in the school textbooks.

Shafi's Qawmi madrasa-based organisation came to limelight again recently by demanding the removal of the Lady Justice statue from the Supreme Court premises.

The statue was relocated outside the top court's Annex Building later after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina met a delegation led by Shafi at her official residence in April. The PM herself too said 'she had reservations about the statue'.

At the same meeting, she announced the highest Qawmi Madrasa certificate would be made equivalent to a post-graduate degree.