BJP President phones ailing Khaleda

FE Team | Published: January 09, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00

President of Indian Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Amit Shah phoned the BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia on Wednesday night and enquired about her health condition as she fell sick after police used pepper spray to her vehicle on Monday, reports UNB.
"The BJP President made the phone call around 10:30pm on Wednesday," BNP chairperson's press secretary Maruf Kamal Khan Sohel told a press conference at BNP chief's Gulshan office on Thursday evening.
He said the BJP President wished her early recovery.
The BNP chairperson also thanked him for the phone call, Maruf Kamal said.
He said many others from home and abroad enquired about BNP chairperson's health condition over phone and they voiced concern over the incident.
The BNP chief also thanked them all, he added.
Another report adds: The BNP chairperson urged all to pray for her early recovery.
"She (Khaleda) urged the country's people to pray for her so that she can quickly recover from her illness," noted cultural personality and music lyricist Gazi Mazharul Anwar told reporters on Thursday after visiting Khaleda who has remained confined to her office since Saturday night.
Mazharul, an adviser of BNP's cultural wing JASAS, said Khaleda is very ill caused by the adverse impact of pepper spray as she even cannot talk normally for pain in her throat. A six-member delegation of Jasas, led by Mazharul, came to meet the BNP chairperson in the afternoon at her office. But police allowed three of them -- Mazharul, film director Amzad Hossain and actor Ashrafuzzaman Uzzal -- to enter the office.
Mazharul said Khaleda told them that the government is showing its undemocratic attitude by confining her to her office as she is on a movement for establishing people's rights. "It's also an act contrary to the constitution."
He also said the BNP chief lamented that though her party is not a militant and terror organization, but the government has kept her confined only for working for people. "Now people will decide what will be our line of action of the movement as we're working for betterment of people," he quoted Khaleda as telling them.
Asked whether Khaleda's health condition is improving, he said as they did not see her earlier they should not make any comment about it. "She's ill and looks like that."
Earlier on Tuesday, Khaleda's press secretary Maruf Kamal Khan said the BNP chairperson had been suffering from a respiratory problem 'due to the impact of pepper spray'.
Maruf said the former Prime Minister was showing vomiting tendency, coughing frequently and suffering from body and head aches while her eyes were watering.
When aggrieved BNP leaders and activists started hitting the BNP chief's office gate in an apparent bid to break it open after police barred Khaleda from coming out of it, police used pepper spray towards them while Khaleda was sitting in her vehicle, making some journalists and female BNP leaders ill.
Later, police used the same spray when Khaleda was talking to reporters standing on a bench on her office premises causing Khaleda's illness.