report on Prothom Alo, Jun 16, 2018 at 14:54 hrs
Senior leaders of principal opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) went to visit jailed party chief Khaleda Zia on Saturday but were denied permission to meet her.
Gathered at the gate of an abandoned Nazimuddin Road jail building, the BNP leaders and workers expressed resentment that over the authorities did now allow them to meet the former prime minister on the day of festival.
“This is unfortunate. Khaleda Zia has been kept confined at the dictation of the government [in a politically motivated case],” BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir told newsmen.
He expressed determination to free Khaleda Zia from jail through popular demonstration.
As the party chief is in jail now, the BNP’s central commitee had no programme on the Eid day but BNP senior joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi called the gathering near jail gate their programme.
Different front organisation leaders, especially women leaders, started gathering there at around 11am. Afterwards, senior leader of the party, including Khandakar Mosharraf Hossain, Nazrul Islam Khan, Mirza Abbas and Gayeshwar Chandra Roy, also arrived there.
Failing to meet Khaleda Zia, the leaders left.
In the morning, the BNP leaders and activists placed wreaths at the grave of BNP founder and late president Ziaur Rahman.
On Friday, the relatives and family members of Khaleda Zia met her at the jail.
The BNP chairperson has been kept in the abandoned jail building since 8 February when a Dhaka court sentenced her to five years of imprisonment in the Zia Orphanage Trust case.http://en.prothomalo.com/bangladesh/news/177870/BNP-leaders-not-allowed-to-meet-Khaleda-on-Eid-day
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