Khaledas 2yrs in jail
BNP announces programmes today
STAFF REPORTER, Dhaka
BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia yesterday completed two years in prison with no immediate sign of her release, despite obtaining bail in almost all the cases barring three.
This is likely to be her longest imprisonment. Earlier, she had been imprisoned in a special sub-jail in the Jatiya Sangsad complex for 372 days after being arrested on September 3, 2007, by the then Army-backed caretaker government.
The 75-year-old opposition leader, who is suffering from
asthma, high blood pressure, arthritis, diabetes, and problems in her eyes and knees, is being treated in a prison cabin at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University since April 1 last year. The demand of BNP leaders and Khaledas family members to treat her in a private hospital has not been met.
The BNP rank and file is frustrated as the former premier has not been released even after two years. They now want a tougher movement to free her from prison. Party policymakers allege that Khaleda has been kept in prison out of political vengeance.
Meanwhile, the BNP has chalked out a two-day programme, including the holding of a protest rally in front of the partys central office, at city and district
levels to mark Khaledas two years in prison. As part of the programme, the party yesterday observed a doa dibosh (prayer day) in mosques across the country for her early recovery.
In Dhaka, a protest rally is scheduled to be held in front of the party central office at 2:00pm today (Saturday). At the event, the party is likely to announce its fresh course of action to press for the release of the former premier.
The BNP, along with its partners in Jatiya Oikyafront and the 20-Party Alliance, took part in the December 30, 2018 parliamentary election with Khaleda Zia in jail. But the turnout of opposition leaders and activists was poor.
After joining politics on January 3, 1983, Khaleda was arrested three more times during the anti-autocratic movement from 1983 to 1987, but she did not have to stay in jail for so long a period as this.
The former prime minister is now serving her 17-year term in the BSMMU prison cabin after she fell ill on April 1 last year. Her family members claimed that her health condition was worsening. They demanded that she be given bail for better treatment abroad.
The release of the BNP chief, who was sent to prison on February 8, 2018, following a special court verdict in the Zia Orphanage Trust graft case, is being delayed because even if she obtains bail in one case, she has to obtain it in another. Khaleda was implicated in 37 cases on charges of corruption, killing people by setting fire to motor vehicles, creating anarchy, violence, sedition, and making defamatory statements.
Among them, she is serving a 17-year term in two graft cases10 years in the Zia Orphanage Trust graft case and seven years in the Zia Charitable Trust graft case. Of the other 35 cases, 19 are pending in different courts, while the other cases are at the investigation stage.
Party leaders and Khaledas lawyers termed the cases filed against her as being politically motivated, alleging that she was unable to come out of jail because of government interference.
Ruling party leaders, however, rejected the allegation, saying that the law was taking its own course and that they were not interfering in the cases.
BNP standing committee member Dr Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain said all the cases filed against Khaleda were politically motivated. She was not involved in the charges brought against her in the case for which she was sent to jail. Since the cases are politically motivated, the legal matter here is secondary, he added.
The elderly leader said the former premier had been kept in prison out of political vengeance.
Speaking at a discussion, BNP standing committee member Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury yesterday said a big message over freeing Khaleda soon would be given from Saturdays rally. He expressed hope that after completion of the two city corporation polls, the movement to free the former premier would take a new direction.
The leader called upon party leaders and activists to make todays rally a grand success.
Meanwhile, BNP leaders claimed that they were given verbal permission by the police to hold todays rally in front of the party central office.
In another development, the BNP yesterday brought out a procession in the city, demanding the release of Khaleda Zia and withdrawal of her punishment and false cases. The procession, led by party senior joint secretary general, began at party central office and ended at the same place after going past Nightingale Intersection at Kakrail.
