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Published : 30 Dec 2025, 09:24 AM
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has announced seven days of mourning following the death of its chairperson and the country’s first female prime minister Khaleda Zia.
The announcement was made on Tuesday at Dhaka’s Evercare Hospital by the party’s Senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi.
He said black flags would be flown for seven days at the BNP’s central office in Naya Paltan and at party offices across the country. Party leaders and supporters will also wear black badges during the mourning period.
Special prayers and Quran recitations will be held at party offices nationwide. Condolence books will also be opened at the BNP’s Naya Paltan headquarters, the chairperson’s office in Gulshan, and district-level party offices.
He added that details of Khaleda's funeral prayers and burial would be announced later.
Khaleda died around 6am on Tuesday while receiving treatment at Evercare Hospital. She had been admitted to the hospital on Nov 23.
The 79-year-old had long suffered from a range of complex and chronic health conditions, including liver and kidney complications, heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, arthritis and infection-related illnesses.
As her condition worsened overnight, her elder son, BNP Acting Chairman Tarique Rahman, and other family members rushed to the hospital. Earlier, her personal physician AZM Zahid Hossain had told reporters that she was going through an “extremely critical” phase.
Khaleda rose to prominence during the anti-autocracy movement of the 1990s, earning a reputation as an “uncompromising leader”. Much of her political life was marked by street protests and confrontations. She was arrested and imprisoned several times but never went into exile, and she never lost a parliamentary election she contested.
