BNP chief Khaleda Zia has been released from jail after 25 months behind bars amid the government’s precautionary measures to fight the coronavirus outbreak, reports bdnews24.com.
The home ministry had earlier sent an order for Khaleda’s release to the prison authorities, after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s approval.
Khaleda was released from the BSMMU, where she was receiving treatment, on Wednesday afternoon. A huge crowd gathered there to get a glimpse of Khaleda, raising coronavirus risks at a time when Bangladesh and the rest of the world are practising social distancing.
The document was sent to the jail authorities at 2:10pm.
The BNP chief’s personal security forces with five cars and a microbus were seen at the hospital premises while her Nissan Patrol SUV was already waiting to pick her up and take her to her Gulshan home ‘Feroza’.
Several senior party leaders, including BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam, and some of her family members were seen waiting at the hospital there for her release. After the formalities of her release ended at the cabin block, a new wheelchair was taken to sixth floor room 621.
The situation became chaotic when BNP supporters crowded the hospital. BNP secretary-general was then seen requesting the supporters to clear out the hospital premises.
With 39 infected, five deaths and seven recoveries as of Wednesday afternoon, Bangladesh, too, is on the verge of cutting all communications across the country. The country is retreating from public life with more and more people staying indoors.
On Wednesday, the global death toll from the coronavirus hit 18,918 with the number of infections rising to 423,121, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. 108,619 people have recovered from the infection.
Khaleda, who is ailing, had been receiving treatment in prison. Expressing concerns over Khaleda’s health amid ‘risks of coronavirus infection’, BNP lawyers demanded her release the day before.
Khaleda has been in prison since February 2018 after she was sentenced to a total of 17 years in two graft cases involving Zia Orphanage Trust and Zia Charitable Trust.
She was initially kept at Old Dhaka’s abandoned central prison, but later on Apr 1, 2019 she was moved to Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University for treatment.
In the past two years, Khaleda’s legal team had appealed several times for her bail but it was not granted. It was reported in the media that her family appealed to the home ministry for her temporary release in early March.
Three weeks after the appeal, Law Minister Anisul Huq on Tuesday said the government stayed the effectiveness of the court sentence in an executive order and decided to release Khaleda for six months on condition of receiving treatment at home and not travelling abroad.
"We have decided to release her on humanitarian grounds as per the instructions of the prime minister,” Anisul Huq said.
The law ministry sent a recommendation to the home ministry informing its decision. Then the home ministry sent the papers to the prime minister’s official residence Ganabhaban on Wednesday. Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan went to the Ganabhaban himself in the morning.
After the prime minister’s approval, the documents reached the home ministry on Wednesday afternoon. The ministry then issued a notice on Khaleda’s release and sent it to the jail. A jail officer then delivered the release papers to the hospital.
