Khaleda leaves for Saudi Arabia to perform Hajj with Tarique

Khaleda Zia has left for Saudi Arabia where she will perform this year’s Hajj with her family members including eldest son Tarique Rahman.

A regular Saudi Arabian Airlines flight carrying the BNP chairperson and her entourage took off from Dhaka’s Shahjalal International Airport at 5pm on Wednesday.
 
Khaleda was accompanied by several party leaders, her Personal Secretary Abdus Sattar and photographer Nuru Uddin Ahmed, among others.
 
Tarique, his wife and daughter started for Jeddah from London on Wednesday evening (Bangladesh time), said the BNP chief’s Press Wing member Shairul Kabir Khan.
 
Tarique, the BNP senior vice-chairman who has been living in the UK for past eight years, accompanied his mother in July 2014 in performing Umrah.
 
Khan said they will be performing the pilgrimage this year at the invitation of Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.
 
Tarique’s mother-in-law Iqbal Mand Banu, her eldest daughter Shahina Khan Zaman Bindu and her husband Syed Shafiuzzaman will also accompany Khaleda during the Hajj. They arrived in Jeddah on Tuesday.
 
Syeda Sharmila Rahman Sithi, wife of Khaleda's late son Arafat Rahman Coco, was also scheduled to leave from London on Wednesday and join the former prime minister in Jeddah.
 
This will be Khaleda's third Hajj. She performed the pilgrimage first in 1991 when she was the prime minister and then in 1997 when she was in the Opposition.
 
But the BNP chief performs Umrah during Ramadan every year.