Khaleda meets relatives, takes homemade food on eid day

BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia passed around an hour with her relatives and took food they cooked for her on the eid day today.

Though her party leaders were barred from meeting her, only six relatives of the BNP chief with some cooked food, new clothes and flowers entered the Old Dhaka Central Jail around 3:35pm.

Khaleda's sister Selina Islam, her husband professor Rofiqul Islam, sister-in-law Nasrin Iskandar, daughter-in-law Sharmila Rahman and granddaughter Jahiya Rahman and Tarique Rahman's sister-in-law Sahina Zaman Bindu met her.

They came out of the jail around 4:40pm.

In the meeting room, Khaleda and the visiting family members ate the food which was sent by her elder son Tarique's mother-in-law Syeda Iqbalmand Banu for her.

Wearing a cotton shari, khaleda came to meet her relatives with the help of two jail guards, said jail sources.

Family members said, Khaleda caressed her granddaughter and exchanged eid greetings with others.

Khaleda used to take her lunch by 1:30pm any other day, but she waited for her relatives to bring homemade food for her today, said jail sources.

The jail authorities offered Khaleda with vermicelli cooked with milk, some sweetmeats and Jarda rice in the morning, but she did not take the food.

The BNP chief took the first meal of the day with food taken by her relatives.

Huge law enforcers remained deployed in and around the jail since the morning as BNP leaders earlier announced to go to the jail.

Earlier, senior BNP leaders, including standing committee members and vice chairmen, along with several hundred leaders and activists headed for the jail gate around 12 pm to meet Khaleda.

Police, however, obstructed them nearly half a kilometre away from the jail gate as they had no permission from the jail authorities to meet Khaleda.

After waiting for half an hour, the BNP leaders left the place failing to meet her.

On February 8, Khaleda Zia was sent to jail after a special court sentenced her to five years' rigorous imprisonment in Zia Orphanage Trust graft case.

Khaleda has been staying at the jail with her domestic help Fatema Begum.

The BNP chief earlier celebrated eid twice in jail after her arrest by the army-backed caretaker government after the 1/11 political changeover in 2007.