Staff Reporter :
BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia, who was jailed for five years in Zia Orphanage Trust graft case, got the facilities of first class division as a Dhaka court on Sunday ordered the jail authorities to provide her the facilities.
The judge of the Special Court-5, Dr. Md Akhtaruzzaman, passed the order after considering a petition moved by Khaleda Zia’s lawyer Sanaullah Miah seeking division for her in jail.
The lawyer also submitted another petition for providing certified copy of the judgment as early as possible as they would file an appeal with the High Court challenging the lower court verdict in this case.
According to the jail code, a prisoner, who is provided with the division, gets a bed, a table, chair, a newspaper and a television in the prison.
While asked, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal on Sunday said the government has already executed the court’s order that provided Khaleda with the division.
“We have already taken necessary steps in jail for BNP Chief Khaleda Zia considering her the former Prime Minister and also her social dignity,” the Minister said while he was talking to reporters after a meeting at Secretariat in the afternoon.
Meanwhile, Inspector General of Prisons Syed Iftekhar Uddin said, “According to the 1964 and 2006 jail code, there is no mention of former Prime Minister enjoying division facilities in the jail.”
In the jail code current lawmakers and former presidents only get division facilities, Inspector General of Prisons told journalists during a press briefing at Directorate of Prisons in Bakshibazar of Dhaka.
“Khaleda Zia is kept as a general prisoner, because providing division facilities are the court’s jurisdiction,” the IG said.
However, given her social status and her physical condition, the three-time Prime Minister is enjoying certain facilities that are not provided to general prisoners, the official said.
Soon after the verdict was delivered on Thursday, Khaleda Zia landed at the Old Central Jail at Nazimuddin Road in Dhaka.
Since then, BNP senior leaders has been accusing the government of keeping the party’s Chairperson Khaleda Zia in a solitary confinement at the “abandoned” Dhaka Central Jail and alleged that Khleda Zia is not being treated well there.
The government would be held responsible if anything bad happened to her in jail, BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir told a press conference at the Party Chief’s Gulshan office on Saturday night.
After meeting Khaleda Zia at jail on Saturday, BNP senior leader Moudud Ahmed alleged that she (Khaleda) has been kept in the jail just like any other ordinary prisoner. It is the violation of the Jail Code because she is supposed to get division [status] as a former Prime Minister and the Chief of a political party.
The government, however, claims that Khaleda Zia is being treated as a “first class prisoner”, getting all her due benefits.
The special court also sentenced Khaleda’s eldest son and BNP Senior Vice-Chairman Tarique Rahman, and four others to 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment and slapped a fine of Tk 2.10 crore each.
The Anti-Corruption Commission had filed the case with Ramna Police Station in July 2008, accusing Khaleda Zia and the five convicts of misappropriating over Tk 2.1 crore that had come from a foreign bank as grants for orphans.
