Jailed Bangladesh Opposition leader shifted to hospital

Monitoring Desk

DHAKA: After months of opposition outcry, three-time prime minister of Bangladesh and imprisoned opposition leader Khaleda Zia has been shifted to hospital on Monday.

Opposition leader Khaleda Zia was referred to Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University upon the suggestion of jail authority.

According to ABM Mahbubul Alam, the director of the university hospital, Zia suffers from diabetes.

She also has pains in knee joints and have difficulty in sleeping, Alam said, adding weak health condition of her and need for someone while walking.

The opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) repeatedly demanded the government to provide proper treatment to Zia in Dhaka.

In an immediate response, BNP’s Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir told reporters in Dhaka that they don’t have confidence in the government for providing proper treatment for Zia.

Despite Zia’s preference, the government is rigid not to take her to a private hospital, and kept her in jail without treatment for months, a move her party called inhumane, he added.

Zia, 73, widow of assassinated former President Ziaur Rahman, had been taken to the same hospital on Oct. 8 last year and later re-shifted to jail after a month of treatment.

The opposition leader is serving 17 years of jail term since February 8 last year in an old abandoned jail in Dhaka after convicted in numbers of cases related to violence and corruption that her lawyers insist are politically motivated. (AA)