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Published : 11 Jan 2018, 05:21 PM
Kandhalvi will stay away from Tabligh Jamaat’s annual event Biswa Ijtema, the largest Muslim congregation after the hajj.
The decision came after a two-hour meeting that started around 3:30pm. Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan mediated between the two factions.
Kandhalvi arrived in Dhaka from New Delhi Wednesday amid protests just outside the Dhaka airport by more than 500 people loyal to one of the factions.
The protests crippled traffic on one of the busiest roads in the city, which leads to some national highways.
Kandhalvi was taken to Dhaka’s Kakrail Mosque, the headquarters of Tabligh Jamaat’s Bangladesh chapter.
Saad Kandhalvi. File photo
Kandhalvi will stay in the mosque for some more days before his departure from Bangladesh to India, according to Khan.
Both factions agreed on the decision.
On Thursday morning, Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s Joint Commissioner Krishna Pad Roy visited the area, after which the police said Kandhalvi would not attend the Ijtema, set to start on Friday. The Rapid Action Battalion made a similar statement.
Tabligh Jamaat is the largest organisation of Sunni Muslims in the Indian subcontinent. Its headquarters, referred to as the Markaz, is based in New Delhi. Its operations are conducted through 13-member central council, called the Nezamuddin.
Kandhalvi has recently announced himself as the chief of the body, which created a rift among the senior members of the Tabligh Jamaat’s Bangladesh chapter.
In November, a scuffle broke out between two groups on the premises of Dhaka’s Kakrail Mosque.
In an effort to avoid such untoward incidents in future, an advisory council was formed by the ‘senior leaders’.
The council’s member Abdul Quddus, who serves as the acting secretary general of Qawmi Madrasa Education Board, told bdnews24.com: “All five members of the advisory council think that Mawlan Saad should leave.”
Bangladesh Islami Oikya Jote, an Islamist political party, led the anti-Kandhalvi protests.
Asked why they are opposing Kandhalvi, the party’s Secretary General Mufti Faizullah told bdnews24.com, “In a nutshell, he has misinterpreted the Quran.”
