A Pakistani cleric who posed for selfies with a controversial model – Quandeel Baloch – has been suspended from a senior government committee, the country’s religious affairs ministry said, rebuking him for his behaviour.
Mufti Abdul Qavi was removed Wednesday from the country’s moon-sighting committee which decides when the ongoing holy month of Ramzan begins and ends, according to a notification issued by the ministry.
The suspension comes after he was widely ridiculed when social media starlet Qandeel Baloch — a deeply polarising figure in the conservative Muslim country — uploaded the pictures earlier this week along with a video of herself with the preacher, wearing his hat.
Baloch later called Qavi “a blot on the name of Islam” and accused him of inappropriate behaviour.
Qavi was also suspended as a member of the Pakistan Tehreek Insaaf opposition party, led by cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan, a former socialite who became more religious after his retirement as a sportsman.
“Mufti Qavi’s fate will be decided after the opinion of the (National religious scholars) Council regarding his selfies and behaviour,” a spokesman for the ministry told Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper Wednesday.
