BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia has been taken back to prison after medical tests at the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University in Dhaka after nearly two months of her conviction and imprisonment in a graft case.
The former prime minister has been in the old jailhouse on Nazimuddin Road since Feb 8 when a special court sentenced her to five years in prison for corruption in Zia Orphanage Trust fund.
A car carrying the BNP chief left the prison around 11:15am on Saturday. An ambulance and two other cars followed her vehicle. The Rapid Action Battalion or RAB escorted the convoy.
Khaleda, wearing an off-white jamdani saree, arrived at BSMMU under tight security around 11:30am. She got off the car and walked towards the lift in the cabin block where a team of doctors of 'her choice' was waiting. After general consultations, she was taken to the X-ray room.
Khaleda was taken to the prison through the same route under strict security around 1:45pm. She visited BSMMU for the last time a decade ago to see her son Tarique Rahman.
Police closed the gates of the hospital when Khaleda arrived, blocking many relatives of the patients inside.
The party alleges that the government staged drama in the name of Khaleda’s treatment. It has demanded she be allowed consult her personal physicians.
The ruling Awami League says the authorities arranged Khaleda’s treatment following the jail code and the government had nothing to do with it.
BSMMU hospital Director Brig Gen Abdullah-Al-Harun said the x-ray reports would be handed to the jail authorities on Sunday.
He also said the former prime minister’s health condition ‘appeared normal’.
“We arranged a wheelchair for her, but she preferred walking from the cabin to the Radiology and Imaging Department. After the hospital visit, she walked back to the car,” Harun said.
The 73-year-old is suffering from problems in her heart, eyes and knee, her doctors earlier said. She is on regular medication.
She cannot be released from prison before May 8 when the Supreme Court hears petitions by the state and the Anti-Corruption Commission, the plaintiff of the case, seeking a review for harsher punishment.
The news of her ailment was revealed when the jail authorities did not produce her in court for hearing on another case on Mar 28.
The authorities formed a team of doctors to treat her. After visiting her, her doctors said her sickness was ‘nothing serious’.
But BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, after visiting Khaleda in jail on Friday, said she was ‘not so well’.
Police beefed up security around the prison, and the jail authorities heightened their activities on Saturday morning, but no official said what the reason was.
Around 9:30am, BSMMU Treasurer Ali Asgor Moral confirmed to bdnews24.com that Khaleda was being taken to his hospital.
He said they were preparing a cabin for Khaleda on the jail authorities request.
The vehicle carrying Khaleda left the prison around 11:15am.
“We took her to the hospital safely,” Dhaka Joint Police Commissioner Sheikh Nazmul Alam told the media after the convoy reached the BSMMU.
BSMMU doctor Harun took three doctors – cardiologist Mohammad Mamun, general medicine specialist FM Siddiqui, and neuro medicine specialist Wahidur Rahman - to the cabin no. 512 where the BNP chief was. Another doctor from the jail authorities was also present.
The four are not members of the team formed earlier to treat Khaleda, but Mamun was one of her personal physicians.
Khaleda then walked to the hospital’s radiology and imaging department, where her knee and arm were x-rayed.
They waited in their car for some time as police stopped them at the gate of the cabin block.
A group of leaders and activists of the Jatiyatabadi Mohila Dal crowded around the car at that time.
They entered the hospital later and met the BNP chief during the tests.
BNP Joint Secretary General Mahbub Uddin Khokon, who is also a lawyer for Khaleda, told bdnews24.com he took them there after speaking to the hospital authorities.
He said Khaleda had spoken to Sharmila and the granddaughters.
Mohila Dal President Afroza Abbas also sought permission to see the BNP chief, but she was denied entry following an altercation with the police personnel.
Moudud later said they had no confidence in the treatment provided by the government to Khaleda.
“She has been kept in an abandoned and secluded jail where she is bound to fall ill. We want her to be freed so she can receive treatment by her personal doctors,” said Moudud.
Later, BNP Senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi told a media conference that their chief was ‘forcefully’ taken to the hospital.
“It is clear that she was forced to go. We hear that they repeatedly entered her prison cell and prompted her to hurry,” he said.
“If anything happens to her due to lack of proper care, the government will have to bear the responsibility,” Rizvi warned the ruling party.
Khaleda left the hospital around 1:15pm. She waved to her supporters who gathered outside the hospital to see her.
However, Khaleda preferred the presence of her four personal physicians at the BSMMU.
Dr KM Ali of Apollo Hospital is one of them, who was seen at the main gate of the hospital but was barred from entering the hospital.
[Additional reporting by Liton Haider, Nurul Islam Hasib, Tarek Hasan Nirjhor and Kazi Mobarak Hossain]