When the issue of “detention” or “treatment” of Jatiya Party Chairman HM Ershad became a talk of the town, a presidium member of the party came with a declaration today that the JP chief would not be sent to abroad for treatment.
“Ershad will continue his treatment at the Combined Military Hospital (CMH) in Dhaka” said Kazi Firoz Rashid, a presidium member of the JP, emerging from a meeting with Rowshan Ershad at the latter’s Gulshan residence in the capital.
Rowshan Ershad is the wife of the JP chief and a senior presidium member of the party.
When asked, if Ershad has been undergoing treatment at the CMH, then why his party enforced agitation programmes like hartal demanding his release, Rashid said, “I don’t know about it.”
“The party high-ups like its Secretary General Ruhul Amin Hawladar and Presidium Member GM Quader know about it,” he said.
Earlier, a senior JP leader close to Ershad told The Daily Star that initially, Ershad was informed that he would be sent to Singapore.
But he refused to go to Singapore. Now he may be sent to Malaysia.
A government agency had already collected the passports of Ershad, his son Eric Ershad and his two personal staff, the JP sources said yesterday.
The government was trying to gain Ershad’s support for the January 5 election, even by “confining” him in the CMH, the sources added.
Information Minister Hasanul Haq Inu, however, denied the claim yesterday saying that Ershad was not detained. “He was admitted to the hospital for treatment.”
An intelligence agency picked up Ershad from his Baridhara residence, President Park, in the capital on December 12, a few hours before the JP chief had sent a letter to the Election Commission requesting it not to allocate his party’s electoral symbol, plough, to anyone, since his party had decided to boycott
Source: The Daily Star
