Describing the prison cell for BNP chief Khaleda Zia as damp and non-habitable, her personal doctors who examined her on Saturday said that it was infested with rats.
According to them, the worn-out and abandoned prison cell has affected her mental health.
The BNP has been voicing concern over the health of the 73-year-old chairperson and demanding that she be transferred to United Hospital.
A three-time prime minister, Khaleda is serving a five-year term in the old jailhouse in Dhaka since Feb 8, when she was convicted of embezzling foreign donations made to the Zia Orphanage Trust.
On Saturday, she was examined by her four personal physicians at the prison on Old Dhaka’s Nazimuddin Road.
Neurosurgeon Wahidur Rahman was among them.
“Khaleda’s prison cell is damp and it’s extremely hot inside. A big issue, which everyone informed me, was rats. It’s infested with rather large rats,” he told Bangla Tribune on Sunday.
Rahman said Khaleda panicked one night when a cat attacked a rat. “So you can assume her mental and physical state.”
Pro-BNP doctors’ body, Doctors Association of Bangladesh (DAB) said on Sunday that insects were making Khaleda’s life miserable.
A joint statement by DAB President AKM Azizul Haque and General Secretary AZM Zahid Hossain claimed that Khaleda was deprived of proper medical care causing her medical condition to deteriorate.
On June 5, Khaleda had a fall and she is suffering from high-fever for at least three weeks, claimed the statement.
BNP leaders have been long demanding Khaleda be transferred to a hospital, alleging that the authorities were not arranging proper treatment for the ‘ailing’ leader.
The four members of Khaleda’s personal medical team told the media on Saturday that had suffered a ‘mild stroke’ and recommended that she be moved to the private hospital.
The government denied it, but Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said on Sunday that she will be taken to the BSMMU Hospital for tests to see if she had indeed suffered a stroke.