It was Feb 8 of last year when BNP chief Khaleda Zia was sentenced to five years jail term on charges of embezzling funds meant for the Zia Orphanage Trust.
Her jail term in the case was later revised up to 10 years while a Dhaka court handed her another 7 years in the Zia Charitable Trust graft case.
On Friday, BNP has planned nationwide protests programs within the party marking the chairperson’s one year incarceration.
The party is scheduled to hold a protests rally at the capital’s Engineering Institute Auditorium.
“A protest program will be held at the Engineering Institute in Ramna on 2:30pm Friday while similar protest programmes will be held nationwide on February 9,” senior joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi told the media.
BNP’s Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, who is in Singapore for medical treatment, will not be able to attend the programme, he told Bangla Tribune while leaving for Singapore a week ago.
Opposition alliance Jatiya Oikya Front leaders said that they plan to visit the BNP Chairperson in jail on Friday.
BNP’s policymaking National Standing Committee member, Jamir Uddin Sircar, also told Bangla Tribune that the alliance leaders are likely to visit Khaleda.
BNP has been alleging since Khaleda’s conviction on 2018’s Feb 8 that her incarceration is politically motivated.
Recalling Khaleda’s struggling political career, her media wing member, Shairul Kabir Khan said: “BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia was behind bars for over a year during 1/11. The current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was also in jail at the time. Khaleda was also detained during military dictator HM Ershad’s rule. She was under house arrest with Ziaur Rahman in the aftermath of November 7 of 1975. She was held during the anti-Ershad movement and was attacked as well. Khaleda also came under attack in 1996, during the Awami League regime.”
She faced harassments and was kept confined to the roads for an entire day,” he added.
A three time premier, Khaleda, is serving her jail term at the old central jail on Nazimuddin Road in Old Dhaka.