With the legal battles to secure bail for party chief Khaleda Zia apparently failing, the BNP is now considering to propose the government to declare her Gulshan residence ‘Feroza’ as a sub-jail.

Senior party leaders say there’s no legal barrier to keep the former prime minister at the Gulshan house until she gets bail.

According to highly-placed source in the BNP, the matter was also discussed during Monday’s meeting between the Jatiya Oikya Front top brass and envoys of the US, UK, Australia as well as the UN resident coordinator.

The government, however, said it has no such plans.

“The home minister will look into the issue. But I can say that the government is not considering the matter right now,” Law Minister Anisul Huq told Bangla Tribune on Tuesday (Feb 26).

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal could not be reached for a comment.

The prison authorities say it’s entirely up to court.

“It’s actually not for us to say. We will follow whatever the court orders,” said Additional Inspector General of Prisons Col Md Iqbal Hasan.

However, a former prisons department official said it’s the government’s call, not the court's.

“As far as I know, the government issues a circular if it wants to declare an establishment as sub-jail,” said Shamsul Haider Siddiqui, who served as the deputy inspector general of prisons during the 2007-08 emergency rule.

“But what needs to be considered before making Khaleda’s residence a sub-jail is the people who are now living there. Once it’s declared a sub-jail they cannot live there,” he told Bangla Tribune.

During the emergency regime of the military-backed caretaker regime, a host of politicians, including Khaleda and Awami League chief and now Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina were arrested in a crackdown on ‘corruption’.

The two leaders were kept at the speaker’s residence on the premises of the National Parliament by declaring it a sub-jail.

“The government decided and issued gazette notification [for the sub-jail]. ‘The court’s call’ is what the prison department says, that was not the case then [during the emergency regime],” Siddiqui said.

A senior BNP leader said that the issue of sub-jail is likely to be discussed during the policymaking National Standing Committee’s meeting scheduled for Friday (Mar 1).

“The government is not letting Khaleda Zia secure bail. We have been considering the matter of sub-jail for quite some time now. It’s likely to be discussed within the Standing Committee,” said Jamiruddin Sircar, who sits on the BNP policymaking forum.

BNP Joint Secretary General Mahbub Uddin Khokon, who is also a member of Khaleda’s defence team, said Khaleda’s current physical condition calls for her to be shifted to a sub-jail.

“The government’s intervention in the judiciary is an open secret. She would have been granted bail by now,” he told Bangla Tribune.

Meanwhile, BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir claimed that government denied Khaleda access to medical care for the last three months.

A medical board came to check her health on Feb 24, following a court order, after a three-month gap. Due to this negligence, her health is now in critical condition, Fakhrul said.

“The board was astonished to find that she was not given any treatment. That she had no check-ups, including blood and sugar tests and x-ray done for a long time,” he said.

Khaleda is the only prisoner at an old jailhouse, which once housed the Dhaka Central Jail in Old Dhaka.

She was taken to the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University or BSMMU twice during her year-long jail term for corruption.

She was taken to the hospital for the first time on April in 2018. Second time, she received treatment from the hospital between 0ct 6 and 8.

The Anti-Corruption Commission, the prosecutor in the graft cases convicting the BNP chief, however, hinted that it differed with the BNP’s observation of no legal barrier for sub-jail.

“We will consider, if the BNP proposes something like that,” said a counsel for the graft watchdog, requesting anonymity.

In 2010, Khaleda left her long-time home in Dhaka cantonment on following a High Court verdict.

The court ruled it was 'highly illegal' and 'contrary to public interest' for the military chief to give away a cantonment house to Khaleda with the president's approval.

After being hosted by her younger brother Shamim Eskander, she relocated to a new address in April next year.

Built over a bigha land, the two-storey house in the upscale Dhaka neighbourhood of Gulshan was decorated to her taste before she moved in.

Facing the Russian embassy, the house with a lush green lawn (House No 1, Road No 79) is also close to the Pakistan High Commission.

The house, ‘Feroza’, was 'rented' from Tanveer Islam, younger son of retired major and former BNP state minister Quamrul Islam.