Hasina turned away from office gate, fails to meet grieving Khaleda

Setting aside a seething rivalry, Sheikh Hasina went to the Gulshan office of Khaleda Zia to be at the side of the mother who was grieving the loss of her son.

It raised hopes that the two leaders locked in a fierce power struggle will forget their differences, albeit briefly, amid political violence rippling across Bangladesh.

But the prime minister was turned away without an audience on Saturday evening as the BNP chairperson, feeling unwell, had already been ‘put to sleep by her doctors'.

By the time Hasina arrived at the office at 8:35pm, the gate was locked from the inside.

Minutes after her convoy left the Ganabhaban at 8:19pm, the BNP chief’s Special Assistant Shamsur Rahman Shimul Biswas told reporters that the doctors had put Khaleda on sedatives and that she would not be able to meet Hasina.

The prime minister’s Media Affairs Adviser Iqbal Sobhan Chowdhury was critical of the BNP saying that it was "indecent and devoid of political etiquette".

"The prime minister broke all protocols. She came here as the prime minister, a leader and as a mother to console a mother who had lost her son."

"She waited in front of the gate for sometime. But she went back as the gate was kept closed. You all (journalists) saw, the gate was not opened. This is not political etiquette, and it was rude and also insensitive."

He told a horde of media gathered there that none from the BNP cared to greet the prime minister.

"They did not even give her the chance to console Khaleda Zia."

In an unprecedented gesture, the BNP chief had gone to Hasina’s personal residence ‘Sudha Sadan’ at Dhanmondi in May 2009 to console her after the Awami League president’s husband Dr MA Wazed Miah died.

But the arch political adversaries did not speak to each other even at a number of common events for several subsequent years.

They did not talk when they went to Bangabhaban in 2013 to pay their last respects to the late president Md Zillur Rahman.

The two also did not have any conversations when they attended the Armed Forces Day functions at Dhaka Cantonment in the last few years.

After learning about her youngest son Arafat Rahman Coco’s death, Khaleda, who is staying at her office since Jan 3, fell sick around Saturday evening.

Coco died of heart failure in Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur in the afternoon while he was being taken to a hospital.

The 45-year-old has been staying in Kuala Lumpur since 2011 with his wife and two daughters.

He had moved to Malaysia from Bangkok where he had gone in July 2008 for treatment after the then military-backed caretaker government had paroled him.

Coco was arrested along with his mother on Sept 3, 2007 during the state of emergency.

He was also sentenced to six years in prison and fined Tk 190 million in June 2011 for smuggling money to Singapore between 2004 and 2006.

The BNP, however, maintained that the case was politically motivated.

The BNP chief’s Press Secretary Maruf Kamal Khan told bdnews24.com Saturday afternoon that no decision regarding Coco’s burial had been taken yet.

“I could not believe it. We were not prepared to hear something like this,” he said of the news of the demise.

Former MP ABM Ashrafuddin Nizan said Coco’s body had been kept in a Kuala Lumpur hospital mortuary.

Khaleda’s press wing official Shamsuddin Didar said a Namaz-e-Janaza will be held at Masjid Negara in Kuala Lumpur after the Zuhr prayers on Sunday.