Court will decide Latif’s fate: Kamal

The state minister for Home has said the law will take its own course in the Abdul Latif Siddique’s case once he returns to Bangladesh.

File Photo

“There are existing court directives on Latif Siddique. Steps will be taken according to that,” Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal told reporters at the Secretariat on Tuesday.

The senior Awami League leader, who was serving as telecom minister, was sacked from Cabinet and expelled from the party amid the furore over the remarks he made against Hajj at a programme in New York last month.

He, however, continues to be the Member of Parliament representing Tangail-4 constituency.

At least three dozen cases have been filed against him in courts across the country. Arrest warrants too were issued by courts in Dhaka and Chittagong after he did not respond to the summons.

Siddique is currently staying in Kolkata. Sources close to his family say he is not feeling safe to return to Bangladesh. He told Kolkata-based senior journalist and friend Sukharanjan Dasgupta that he would like to remain there or go to Shantiniketan to do ‘a bit of studying’.

Meanwhile, an alliance of Islamist parties enforced a general shutdown on Sunday to demand his arrest.

The video clip of him saying that he was opposed to Hajj, Tabligh besides Jamaat was widely circulated in social media.

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

The remarks drew condemnation from the BNP, Jatiya Party, Jamaat-e-Islami and Chittagong-based group Hifazat-e-Islam.

But Siddique, a freedom fighter, told Dasgupta he was speaking from an economic viewpoint and was quoted vastly out of context.

“How can poor people afford so much expenses but they try selling everything to do Hajj," he said.

He said he refused US authorities offer to stay there. He was equally averse to living in New Delhi as he prefers a ‘Bengali environment.’