‘Sheikh’s bust at hostel un-Islamic’

Ahead of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s visit to the city, the All Bengal Minority Youth Federation has demanded that the statue of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman be removed from the premises of a government-run hostel for students from the minority community. The statue, which resembles an “idol”, is “anti-Islam”, it said.

The federation, which has more than one lakh members in the State, is a platform of 40 minority organisations. Trinamool Congress MP and prominent minority leader Idrish Ali, however, told The Hindu that he was not aware of the matter.

The white marble bust of the hero of the Bangladesh liberation war is on the hostel’s third floor, where Rahman lived from 1945 to 1946, when he was a student at the then Islamia College (now known as Maulana Azad College).