Ailing BNP senior joint secretary general Tarique Rahman received injury on head and other parts of his body as he slipped in a bathroom of the BSMMU Hospital prison cell Monday, reports UNB.
"Tarique went to the bathroom at about 12:15 noon. When he was about to come out of the bathroom he suddenly felt he could not move his right leg. As he tried to walk on his left leg, Tarique fell over the basin and received injury on the right side of his head, backside, right knee and ankle," Dr Kazi Mazharul Islam Dolon, an orthopedic specialist of BSMMU, told the journalists.
Dr Dolon, also a member of the five-member medical team formed for Tarique's treatment, said Tarique was taking rest after being examined. He would be on observation for 48-hours.
DIG (Prisons) Major Shamsul Haider Siddiqui said Tarique fell down in the bathroom and suffered minor injuries to his back and forehead. Tarique's forehead was cut slightly, he said. Later, the DIG visited Tarique and said his condition was better than before. But, he added, the doctors would keep him under a 48-hour observation.
Talking to reporters, Siddiqui said there was nothing to hide from the government side, and the matter for sending Tarique abroad for medical treatment is a matter of the government's decision, not of the prisons authority.
BSMMU sources said that soon after the incident, Tarique's wife Dr Zubaida Rahman went to the hospital and visited her injured husband. However, the prison authority did not allow BNP Secretary General Khandaker Delwar Hossain, leaders Brig Gen (retd) Hannan Shah, Selima Rahman, Nazrul Islam Khan, Goyeshwar Chandra Roy and some other former lawmakers to see Tarique.
Meanwhile, the High Court Monday granted Tarique Rahman six-month interim bail in an extortion case. The bench of justices Tariqul Halim and Sheikh Abdul Awal gave the orders after former primer minister Khaleda Zia's elder son made the appeal.
Ahmed Amin Bhuiyan, owner of Uday Tower, a multi-storied building in Gulshan, filed the case with Gulshan Police Station on March 8 last year.
The plaintiff in his complaint said Tarique had called him at Hawa Bhaban, the BNP chairperson's political office, in January last year and asked him to regularly pay money. Tarique had also demanded Tk 10 million at the time, which Bhuiyan agreed to pay under duress.
When Bhuiyan had gone to Tarique with a cheque of Tk 10 million, the all-powerful BNP leader refused it and demanded the sum in cash. Then, the plaintiff's brother Faruk Ahmed took the money in two briefcases to Hawa Bhaban where Tarique's assistant Apu received them. Tarique informed Bhuiyan the next day that he had the money.
Bhuiyan was a BNP candidate from Noakhali-2 constituency in the forestalled January 22, 2007 election.
Khaleda and her son have appealed for bail in six cases including the Zia Orphanage Trust graft case. The hearing on those appeals will be held today (Tuesday).
