Dhaka, Jun 19 (UNB) – BNP on Wednesday hoped that its chairperson Khaleda Zia will be released soon from jail with bail from the High Court in Zia Orphanage and Zia Charitable Trust graft cases.
“We hope the High Court will ensure justice (to Khaleda) ignoring any kind of pressure, and then the leader of people will return among them,” said BNP senior joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi.
Speaking at a press conference at BNP’s Nayapaltan central office, he also hoped that the government will neither resort to any trick nor obstruct Khaleda’s bail in the two graft cases.
On Tuesday, the High Court granted bail for six months to Khaleda in two cases filed on defamation charges.
She still needs to get bail in two more cases — Zia Orphanage and Zia Charitable Trust graft cases — to walk out of jail.
The BNP chief has been in jail since a lower court sentenced her to five years’ imprisonment in the Zia Orphanage Trust graft case on February 8, 2018.
She was later convicted in Zia Charitable Trust graft case by a special court while the High Court doubled her jail term Zia Orphanage Trust graft case.
Rizvi claimed that Khaleda was convicted in the two cases as the government ‘influenced’ the court.
He alleged that the recent remarks of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Awami League general secretary Obaidul Quader have exposed that Khaleda Zia is not getting bail in bailable cases due to government obstructions.
“Khaleda Zia will get bail and be freed if the government does not interfere. People’s confidence in the apex court will enhance if our leader’s (Khaleda’s) bail in two more fabricated cases is ensured.”
About Tuesday’s fifth and final phase of the upazila election, Rizvi said police and ruling party cadres played a ‘nasty’ role in the polls.
He alleged that police acted like ruling party cadres in all the 20 upazilas to resist the opponent candidates of Awami League.
Voicing concern over the incidents of enforced disappearance, the BNP leader alleged that any person who has enmity with the ruling party men can be made disappeared at any time. “The influential ruling party men are making their opponents disappeared through a contract with law enforcers.”
Referring to the enforced disappearance of a nephew of former state minister of home Sohel Taj, Rizvi said the entire nation has got scared over the incident.
The BNP leader alleged that Bangladesh has now become a valley of killings and enforced disappearances as the government is trying to hang onto power by any means.
