BNP urges govt to allow Khaleda’s treatment abroad

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) on Monday urged the government to withdraw its embargo that restricts Khaleda Zia from going abroad for treatment.

“She (Khaleda Zia) is very sick. She needs better treatment which is impossible here. The government should lift the embargo so that she can avail treatment according to her wills,” BNP standing committee member Nazrul Islam Khan said.

Earlier on March 25 last year, the government, in a special order, released the BNP chairperson, convicted in a graft case, from jail for six months on humanitarian grounds by imposing a condition of staying home in Dhaka and receiving treatment there.

Since then, the former prime minister has been passing days at her residence at Gulshan in the capital.

While addressing a press conference at Khaleda Zia’s Gulshan office in Dhaka this afternoon, Nazrul Islam Khan said, she might need to go abroad for treatment as her condition was getting worse.

No one, except Khaleda Zia’s brother and sister and their family members, can meet her, Khan said accusing the government of keeping Khaleda under ‘house arrest.’

Terming the embargo as inhuman and illogical the BNP standing committee leader said there were instances that many political leaders went abroad in the past for treatment during their jail terms.

But the BNP chairperson is being denied the scope, Khan said.

“It is not a political issue, rather a humanitarian one. We think the embargo needs to be withdrawn so that our party chief takes treatment according to her wills.”