Khaleda's Treatment: DMCH to send health report to jail today

The Dhaka Medical College Hospital will send BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia's health check-up report to the jail authorities today.

Brig Gen AKM Nasir Uddin, director of the hospital, said they received the report from a medical board yesterday and would forward it to the jail authorities.

DMCH Deputy Director Dr Mohammad Shah Alam Talukder said the prison authorities would decide the next course of action for Khaleda's treatment after receiving the report.

He was briefing journalists at the hospital's conference room yesterday, a day after the four-member medical board examined the BNP chief's health at the old central jail in the city.

Hospital sources said although Khaleda had pain in different parts of her body, she had no serious health problems. The medical board advised her to have some tests.

The 73-year-old former prime minister landed in jail on February 8 after a Dhaka court had sentenced her to five years' imprisonment in the Zia Orphanage Trust graft case.

Members of the medical board talked to Khaleda and checked her health in presence of Dhaka Civil Surgeon Ehsanul Karim, said Dr Shamsuzzaman, head of the DMCH orthopedics department and also the chief of the medical board.

FAKHRUL HOSPITALISED

BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir was admitted to United Hospital in the city after he fell sick yesterday.

He was having chest pain and was sweating around 10:30am when he was on way to Dhaka Reporters Unity to join a programme, BNP Vice Chairman AZM Zahid Hossain told The Daily Star.

He was under observation at the hospital. He was shifted to a cabin from the hospital's Coronary Care Unit.

'PM VIOLATING ELECTORAL CODE'

The BNP yesterday alleged that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was “joking with the people” by seeking votes for her party after “taking away their voting rights”.

“Seeking votes as a prime minister is nothing but joking with the people as she has taken their voting rights away,” BNP Senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi said at a press briefing at the party's Nayapaltan central office.

He alleged that the PM violated the electoral code of conduct by launching electioneering.

The Election Commission announced the schedules of Gazipur and Khulna city polls just two days ago and the PM's seeking vote for “boat” was a violation of the electoral code of conduct, Rizvi added.

About Hasina's comment that seeking vote was her political rights, the BNP leader said, “Why was she not carrying out electioneering as the Awami League president to exercise the rights?”