BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia has once again fallen ill, the party said yesterday.
“Khaleda Zia is very sick. If she is not given better treatment, her life will be threatened,” said Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, secretary general of the party.
At a rally in front of the Jatiya Press Club, he said, “We asked you [the government] repeatedly to release her [Khaleda]. I am calling on you again to allow her to go abroad for better treatment. There is still time.”
The 76-year-old former premier is a patient of liver cirrhosis and needs immediate advance treatment abroad, party and family sources say.
Khaleda has also long been suffering from arthritis, diabetes, as well as dental and eye problems. She was admitted to hospital on November 13, nearly a week after she was discharged from the same facility, and moved to the CCU the following day.
Khaleda was sent to jail on February 8, 2018, in a corruption case. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, she was given temporary release on certain conditions on March 25, 2020.
The term of her release has been extended five times so far. The condition was that she will stay in her Gulshan house and won’t leave the country.
Fakhrul also urged Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to issue “a public apology” for saying “Khaleda Zia should be pushed into the river from the Padma Bridge”.
“You issued a death threat to Khaleda Zia. She is the most acceptable and popular leader in the country and was never defeated in any election,” he said, adding that it is unimaginable that such an “irresponsible” comment came from a prime minister.
“People of any civilised country cannot tolerate such a remark. We would like to ask you [Hasina] to offer an apology to the people.”
Issuing a warning, the BNP leader said the people will otherwise oust the government and will not offer a scope for apology later.
BNP’s Dhaka south and north city units arranged the rally in front of the Jatiya Press Club, protesting what they said was an “indecent comment” about Khaleda by the prime minister.
