BNP blasts ministers for Khaleda treatment remarks

Leaders and activists of the opposition BNP will stage demonstrations across the country Thursday demanding release of party chairperson Khaleda Zia, reports UNB.

The demonstration is also meant for mounting pressure on the government to ensure proper treatment of Khaleda, now in jail since 8 February.

BNP senior joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi announced the programme at a press briefing at the party's Naya Paltan central office on Tuesday.

Senior leader of the ruling Awami League and commerce minister Tofail Ahmed alleged that the BNP chief is not at all ill.

"She has chosen a specific hospital where she'll ask the physicians of her choice to recommend her treatment abroad. A conspiracy is on to send her abroad," he was quoted to have said recently.
Read more: BNP rejects CMH option, Tofail says Khaleda not ill

AL leader Tofail also said the issue of alternative hospitals would have come had there been any negligence in her treatment.

He also claimed that the party is hatching a conspiracy to send Khalea abroad in the name of treatment.

Khaleda Zia's lawyers after visiting her during the Ramadan recently said she might have suffered a mild stroke. Immediately afterwards, the government's ministers said sugar level of Khaleda Zia had fallen since she was fasting.

He said the party's all district and metropolitan city units will demonstrate on Thursday.

Rizvi, however, said Gazipur city corporation area will remain out of purview of the demonstration programme.

On 14 June, the BNP submitted memorandums to deputy commissioners (DCs) across the country, including Dhaka, demanding its chairperson Khaleda Zia's proper medical treatment and her release from jail.

Rizvi alleged that the ministers are making unguarded remarks about Khaleda's treatment only to confuse people and obstruct her from receiving treatment at a specialised hospital.

He renewed the BNP’s demand for allowing the former prime minister to receive treatment at United Hospital in the capital after releasing her from jail.

Khaleda has been kept at a building of the abandoned Nazimuddin Road central jail since the court of judge Md Akteruzzaman sentenced her to five years' imprisonment in Zia Orphanage Trust graft case on 8 February.