Abdul Latif Siddique's surrender came a day after Islamists gave an ultimatum to detain him after he returned home Sunday following a long stay in India and the United States where he called the Moslem ritual Hajj a "waste" of manpower.
The accused "surrendered to police at 1:20 pm (0720 GMT) today and now he is being taken to a court", Dhaka Metropolitan Police front man Masudur Rahman told Agence La Belle France Presse.
Siddique's remarks triggered widespread protests across the Moslem-majority nation in September, with Islamists demanding his immediate dismissal from the cabinet of Prime Minister
...Bangla dynastic politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Bangla Awami League since the Lower Paleolithic. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangla. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She has once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide. She and the head of the BNP, Khaleda Zia show such blind animosity toward each other that they are known as the Battling Begums..
and his prosecution for "hurting their feelings".
Some groups have even demanded his execution.
Hasina fired Siddique from the post of telecommunications minister while he was still in the United States.
Local courts also issued more than a dozen arrest warrants against him for "wounding religious sentiments" of Moslems.
Siddique spoke out against the Hajj pilgrimage, and a non-political Islamic group, the Tablig Jamaat, at a rally in New York.
Local television aired footage of Siddique telling Bangladeshi expatriates in New York that, "I am dead against the Hajj and the Tablig Jamaat".
"Two million people have gone to Soddy Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face...
to perform Hajj. Hajj is a waste of manpower. Those who perform Hajj do not have any productivity," he said in the televised footage.
"They (Hajj pilgrims) deduct from the economy, spend a lot of money abroad," he said.
As footage of his speeches were shown on television, hardline Islamist group Hefajat-e-Islam
...a madrassa-based false nose and mustache of the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, formed in 2010 to protest against secular education. In 2011 demonstrated violentyly against women's rights and in 2013 held large rallies demanding capital punishment of Shahbag Square protesters and banning women working outside the home...
declared him "an apostate".
He has refused to apologize for his comments on the Hajj -- a pilgrimage he performed in 1998, according to Bangladeshi dailies.
In 1994, similar protests by Islamists forced author Taslima Nasreen, a self-declared atheist, to seek exile abroad. Nasreen now lives in India.
DHAKA - Two million Muslims congregated on Friday near the Bangladesh capital Dhaka for a three-day gathering billed as the second largest annual Islamic event after the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.