Ensure better treatment for Khaleda

The BNP has again urged the government to immediately ensure better treatment for its Chairperson Khaleda Zia, who is now serving her five-year sentence at Dhaka's old central jail.

“Khaleda Zia is seriously ill. She cannot walk even. Her better treatment and proper health checkup are needed immediately,” BNP standing committee member Nazrul Islam Khan made the plea before Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal yesterday.

Talking to reporters after emerging from a meeting with the home minister at his Secretariat office, Khan said, “We requested the home minister and he appeared positive in this regard.”

He added that the inspector general (prisons) responded to a call of the home minister and attended the meeting and discussed the matter sincerely.

“Now, we are just waiting for the authorities. We hope Khaleda Zia will be taken to United Hospital for better treatment,” Khan told the reporters.

BNP Vice-Chairman Hafizuddin Ahmed accompanied Khan in the meeting.

Insiders say the BNP standing committee members on Saturday night decided to send a delegation to the home minister as party leaders and Khaleda's relatives failed to meet her on Thursday and Friday respectively due to her illness.

HOME BOSS' RESPONSE

Khan said the government would decide on Khaleda's treatment outside the jail after consultation with expert doctors.

“But the decision will be made as per the jail code. If anything is needed to be done beyond the jail code, we will take steps after consultation with doctors,” he told journalists at his office.

“BNP leaders Nazrul Islam Khan and Maj Hafiz Uddin came to me about treatment of their chairperson at United Hospital. I told them that we are doing everything for her treatment and will do what will be needed in future,” he said.

Khaleda has a surgically installed metal piece in her body and a special kind of MRI machine is needed for conducting a test and this machine is available at United Hospital. That is why the BNP leaders requested the government to take Khaleda to that hospital, said the minister.

SEVEN-DAY PROGRAMMES

The BNP and its associate bodies yesterday announced weeklong programmes, including demonstration and formation of human chains, demanding release of Khaleda.

Party's Senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi announced the programmes at a press briefing at party's Nayapaltan headquarters.

As part of the programmes, the party's Dhaka North City unit staged demonstration in front of Hossain Market in the capital's Badda area. Party Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir was present at the programme.

Rizvi said Dhaka South City unit would also hold a similar programme in the capital today.