Khaleda Zia gets police escort

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Staff Reporter :

Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson and former prime minister Khaleda Zia on Thursday regained her police escort after nine years.

Members of the police visited the BNP chairperson’s Gulshan residence to ensure her security following a meeting with her chief security coordinator, Col. (retd.) Mohammad Ishaq Miah, according to BNP media cell member Sayrul Kabir Khan.

Earlier on August 13, the home affairs ministry issued an order to ensure police escort for Khaleda Zia. The police escort was withdrawn by the then Awami League government after Khaleda Zia lost her position as the opposition leader in parliament in 2015.

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On August 6, Khaleda Zia was completely freed by an order from President Mohammed Shahabuddin. She had been placed in Old Dhaka Central Jail on February 8, 2018, after a special court sentenced her to five years in prison in the Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case. On October 30, 2018, the High Court increased her punishment to 10 years. She was also convicted in the Zia Charitable Trust corruption case.

Amid the coronavirus outbreak, the government temporarily freed Khaleda Zia from jail after 776 days through an executive order suspending her sentence on March 25, 2020, with conditions that she would stay in her Gulshan house and not leave the country.

Khaleda, aged 80, has long battled various ailments, including liver cirrhosis, arthritis, diabetes, and issues related to her kidneys, lungs, heart, and eyes. Since her conditional release from jail in 2020, the BNP chief has been receiving treatment frequently at the hospital under a medical board headed by cardiologist Prof. Shahabuddin Talukder.

Khaleda’s doctors have been recommending sending her abroad since she was diagnosed with liver cirrhosis in November 2021.