Dhaka: Prime Minister Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina, in a rare step on Monday, asked the Minister of State Information Murad Murad Hassan to resign for “demeaning statements” to women, according to a leader of the Powerful Awami League.
“The prime minister has told me to tell him (Hassan) to resign tomorrow morning …
I have delivered a message,” Secretary General of the Liga Awami and the Minister of Transportation Jalan Obaidul Quader said in a media briefing.
Quagger refused to have Hassan’s comments, said they were “personal comments that did not have a link to our party”.
Hassan, who is also a doctor, draws criticism of “hateful comments” in the media against the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) Acting Chief Tarique Rahman and former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia granddaughter.
He also heard a famous film actress in audio clips that became viral on social media, placing the government in a shameful situation.
While BNP demanded the government to clean up his position on Hassan’s comments involving Jaima Rahman, a young lawyer who lived in England with his father, women’s rights groups and lawyers punish him because of “vulgar comments and insulting”.
Zia, a corruption convict, is now being treated at Dhaka Hospital with a critical illness, while his older son Rahman is in London to avoid justice in some criminal charges and grafts.
Actress Mahia Mahi, who is now in Saudi Arabia to do the Hajj, in a video message says that Hassan made a leaked message a few weeks ago which was “humiliated and hurt me so I had no words to respond”.
Hasina has served as prime minister for the third consecutive term but this is the first incident when a member of the Council of Ministers was asked to resign.
Constitutional experts say if Hassan is not tender his resignation, the prime minister can make him dismissed through the President’s order.