Khaleda to be shifted to Keraniganj jail: HM

Home minister Asaduzzaman Khan said on Tuesday that the jailed Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson Khaleda Zia would be shifted to Dhaka Central Jail at Keraniganj after her release from Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University Hospital.
He told reporters at his office that he came to know that Khaleda’s health condition was now better and she was fasting during Ramadan.
The minister came up with the announcement at a time when the Dhaka Special Judge Court 3 adjourned till June 18 the hearing in the framing of charges against Khaleda and 12 others in GATCO graft case.
The judge, Abu Syed Dilzar Hossain, passed the order after the prison authority told the court that Khaleda could not be produced in the new makeshift courtroom inside the Dhaka Central Jail at Keraniganj as she was at the hospital.
The government on Sunday shifted the makeshift court trying Khaleda from the old Dhaka Central Jail to Keraniganj on the outskirts of the capital. 
The law ministry issued a gazette on Sunday stating that the Special Judge’s Court 9 would hold trial in the case in the makeshift courtroom at the newly constructed building in front of the Dhaka Central Jail at Keraniganj instead of the makeshift courtroom in administrative building of the old Dhaka Central Jail, on ‘security grounds’. 
Khaleda, also former prime minister, was kept in the Old Dhaka Central Jail following her conviction in a graft case in February 2018 as the new jail at Keraniganj was not prepared for female inmates, said the home minister. 
Khaleda, 75, was admitted to the hospital on April 1. 
Opposing the government move to shift Khaleda to Keraniganj Jail, BNP on Tuesday urged the government to stop ‘dirty game’ over the life of its ailing chairperson.
‘A plot is on to take our ailing leader [Khaleda] to that jail [Keraniganj] though her treatment has not completed yet,’ BNP senior joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi told a press conference at the party office, reported United News of Bangladesh.
About the BNP’s allegation, the home minister said that Khaleda was given all facilities as per the jail code. 
He rejected the allegation of hatching a plot against Khaleda. 
All issues relating to transfer of Khaleda to Keraniganj jail are being resolved, Asaduzzaman said. 
During the military-controlled interim regime, the Anti-Corruption Commission filed the GATCO case against 13 people, including Khaleda and her youngest son Arafat Rahman, with Tejgaon police station on September 2, 2007.
The commission accused them of corruption while signing a contract with Global Agro Trade (Pvt) Co Ltd for container management at inland container depots in Dhaka and Chattogram.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net