Hasina waits for eight minutes in front of the main entrance of Khaleda's office

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina returned from BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia's office on Saturday, where she had gone to console the former prime minister over her son's death.

Senior Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 24 Jan 2015, 05:10 PM
Updated : 25 Jan 2015, 07:53 AM

Khaleda's youngest son Arafat Rahman Coco, who died a fugitive from justice having been sentenced to six years in jail for smuggling money out of the country, died of a cardiac arrest in Malaysia earlier in the day.

Hasina's motorcade arrived in front of the BNP chief's Gulshan office around 8:35pm, bdnew24.com's Chief Political Correspondent Sumon Mahmud and Prime Minister Office's Correspondent Reazul Bashar reported from the scene.

The prime minister, flanked by senior Awami League leaders and ministers Tofail Ahmed and Amir Hossain Amu, waited in front of the main gate, locked from the inside, for eight minutes.

The bdnews24.com correspondents said that Tofail and Amu were the first to get out of their cars and walk towards the main entrance. They spoke to Khaleda's Special Assistant Shamsur Rahman Shimul Biswas.

The ministers were told that Khaleda was put on sedatives as she had been feeling unwell and no one was being allowed to see her.

Two cars of the personal security forces of Khaleda blocking the office gate from the inside and outside for the last few days had not been moved even after the word got out that the prime minister was coming.

Briefed on the situation by her Special Assistant Mahbubul Hoque Shakil, Hasina emerged from her car and walked to the main gate. Special Security Forces (SSF) personnel then knocked on the gate for a while.

At 8:43pm, the prime minister returned to her car and headed to her Ganabhaban residence.

None from the BNP or Khaleda's relatives were seen at the main gate then, the bdnews24.com correspondents said.

Earlier, when the news of Hasina’s impending visit broke, the BNP chief's special aide told reporters that doctors had sedated Khaleda as she had been feeling unwell.

In 2009, Khaleda went to Hasina's Dhanmondi residence when the prime minister's husband Dr MA Wazed Miah passed away. The BNP chief had consoled Hasina and the two spoke for a while.

After that, the two had joined certain programmes at times but did not speak to each other.

The two leaders went to the Bangabhaban in 2013, when the then President Md Zillur Rahman died, but did not talk.

In the past few years, Khaleda and Hasina went to the Dhaka Cantonment during the Armed Forces Day celebrations but did not speak to each other.

Coco died in Kuala Lumpur around 12:30pm Bangladesh time on Saturday while being taken to a hospital after he suffered a cardiac arrest.

Khaleda's youngest son went to Thailand for medical treatment on July 17, 2008 when he was released on parole almost after a year of his arrest.

He then moved to Malaysia, the Thai envoy to Dhaka told the media in 2011.

The same year, a Dhaka court sentenced him to a six-year prison term for smuggling money to Singapore, but the BNP has always claimed that the lawsuit and the verdict were politically motivated.