Sacked Bangladesh minister surrenders

Seddiqi had been staying in India amid blasphemy row

Sacked former minister Abdul Latif Seddiqi yesterday surrendered to police after Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina overnight ordered his arrest. A court had issued a warrant for Seddiqi’s derogatory comments against Islam and the Prophet Mohammad ( PBUH) more than a month ago in New York.

“He [ Seddiqi] drove to the police station and reported to the duty officer at about 1.30pm [ BST] today,” an officer at Dhanmandi police station in Dhaka told journalists two days after his dramatic return home from Kolkata, India, where he had been staying for a month.

Strike threat

The ex- minister was taken to the metropolitan magistrate’s court in Dhaka, which ordered him to be sent to jail.

The former telecom minister preferred to stay in Kolkata on his way back home from New York and eventually returned to Bangladesh braving several arrest warrants but went to an undisclosed location after sneaking out of the airport, dodging media on Monday night.

His return sparked fresh demands for his arrest with a major group threatening to stage a nationwide strike tomorrow unless he was arrested by yesterday.

Officials said Hasina on Monday night directed the home ministry to comply with the court warrant without any delay.

Seddiqi spoke out against the Haj, and a non- political Islamic group, the Tablig Jamaat, at a rally in New York.

He was in the United States to attend the UN General Assembly as a member of the premier’s entourage. Television footage showed him telling Bangladeshi expatriates in New York, “I am dead against the Haj and the Tablig Jamaat”.

“Two million people have gone to Saudi Arabia to perform the Haj. It is a waste of manpower. Those who perform the Haj do not have any productivity,” he said in the televised proceedings.

“They [ pilgrims] deduct from the economy, spend a lot of money abroad,” he said.

After his speeches were shown on television, hardline Islamist group Hefajat-e- Islam declared him an apostate.

Seddiqi has refused to apologise for his comments on the Haj — a pilgrimage he performed in 1998, according to Bangladeshi dailies.