CID to collect Saydee’s comments on Prof Azad

The criminal investigation department (CID) has moved to collect Jamaat leader Delwar Hossain Saydee’s hostile remark on late Prof Humayun Azad in parliament in 2004.

Requested by CID, the parliament secretariat will send Saydee’s statement to home ministry in a day or two.

Following a petition, a Dhaka court in October 2009 ordered CID to re-investigate the case filed on charges of murder attempt on Prof Azad in February 2004.

The Daily Star got a copy of the statement Sayedee made on January 25, 2004.

Pointing to Prof Azad’s novel Pak Sar Jamin Sad Bad, published in Daily Ittefaq in 2003, Sayedee said, “Humayun Azad hurt Islam as well as the entire Muslim world through his writing.”

“It is, therefore, imperative to pass a blasphemy law so that nobody cannot write or speak against any religion,” said Jamaat leader Sayedee who is known as a collaborator of the Pakistani forces in 1971 and now behind bars.

In the end of his speech, Sayedee sought the then premier Khaleda Zia’s attention through the state minister for religious affairs to this end.

On February 27, 2004, assailants severely stabbed Azad near Bangla Academy.

Azad’s brother Kabir filed the petition seeking re-investigation into the attack stating, his brother on March 13, 2004 said Sayedee criticised the book.

Prof Azad died in his apartment in Munich on August 11, 2004.

Rashidul Hasan

thedailystar

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