Khaleda steps into 3rd year in jail
She has headed one of the biggest political parties in Bangladesh in her career spanning around four decades, one of which as head of the government and so her supporters now fund her lengthy incarceration hard to swallow.
Besides demanding her quick release ahead of her two years in jail, they blame the senior leadership for the “failure” to free Khaleda Zia after she was sentenced to five years in prison on Feb 8, 2018 for corruption.
Some of them think she should be taken out through negotiations with the government by any means while it is clear from the top leaders’ comments that they cannot make heads or tails of the issue.
The BNP chairperson has been in a cabin of the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Medical University, serving a total of 17 years in two graft cases, under the jail authorities’ supervision since April last year.
The authorities moved her to the hospital when the High Court ordered her treatment for illness blamed by the BNP on her incarceration for the 11 previous months in the old jailhouse on Nazimuddin Road and “a lack of care”.
Suffering from arthritis, diabetes and different other old-age complications, the 74-year-old former prime minister is “seriously ill” and cannot even move or eat without the help of others, her family members claim. They fear for her life if she is made to stay at the BSMMU for a longer time. Her house help Fatema Begum stays with her in her cabin at the hospital.
BNP leaders also allege that their chief is denied proper treatment at the hospital. They demand that she be moved to a specialised private hospital but the government ministers accuse the opposition of exaggerating her illness for political purposes.
Khaleda is enjoying her days “like a king” in the hospital, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said.
Ruling Awami League General Secretary Obaidul Quader denied any negligence in Khaleda’s treatment at the BSMMU.
The government’s clean bill of health to Khaleda, however, has failed to reassure the grassroots of the BNP.
They demand quick action from the leaders for the chairperson’s release.
“I have been working for the BNP for 37 years but never become a leader. I think madam [Khaleda] is the life of the BNP, an inspiration to the activists and supporters. I don’t know why the leaders could not free her in two years,” said Akkas Ali, a betel leaf vendor in Old Dhaka.
“I have only one request to the leaders – get madam out through negotiations with the government, by any means, for her better treatment,” he added.
Mohammad Hafiz, another BNP activist who sells shirts on a footpath at Gulistan,
questioned the role of the leaders in efforts to get Khaleda released.
“What’s their job? Why can’t they do something with the government for madam’s release?” he asked.
“I know this government has no empathy. They have held the courts hostage. But it is the leaders who must find a way out of such a situation,” Hafiz remarked.
Kulsum Begum, a cleaner of a private school in Shantinagar, said, “Khaleda Zia is the lighthouse of the BNP. A way to her release must be found immediately. Two years have passed. How much longer do we have to wait?”
There have been speculations that Khaleda’s family have been trying to get her out of jail for treatment abroad through discussions with the government since Jan 24 when her sister Selima Islam told the media after visiting her that they might consider filing a “special plea” with the authorities.
“We haven’t done it yet. But if her condition remains unchanged, we won’t be able to take her home alive after some days,” she said.
A BNP leader of its Dhaka Metropolitan unit, requesting anonymity, said he had also heard about discussions between the family and the government on sending Khaleda abroad.
“We wish it were true,” he said.
The BNP organised special prayers at the mosques across Bangladesh after Friday prayers for her quick recovery from illness.
“I don’t know how she is now. I’ve prayed for her wellbeing,” BNP activist Amzad Hossain said after the prayers at Paltan Jame Mosque.
The BNP activists distributed leaflets among the people demanding release of Khaleda in Shahbagh, Mohammadpur and other areas on Friday morning.
“We are in a movement for the release of Khaleda Zia. We are staging protests. We will organise a rally at Naya Paltan tomorrow [Saturday] marking two years of torture on her,” Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said.
He reiterated the allegations that the government had “orchestrated” her trial “on false charges by taking hold of the justice system illegally”.
“They are denying her constitutional right to walk out bail. We have moved court repeatedly but you all know what have happened,” Mirza Fakhrul added.
The two graft cases Khaleda was convicted of involve the Zia Orphanage Trust and Zia Charitable Trust.
She is accused in 31 more cases on charges related to violent protests, defamation, sedition, and celebrating a fake birthday.
In politics for 38 years, it is not Khaleda’s first time in prison. During the 2007 emergency rule started by a military backed caretaker government, the BNP chief spent one year and seven days in a sub-jail set up in a house in the parliament complex.
During HM Ershad’s rule, she was put under house arrest in 1983, 1984 and 1987. Police detained her during a meeting at the Purbani Hotel in 1987.
