Information and Broadcasting Minister Hasan Mahmud on Monday said partisan physicians are also politicising the issue of BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia’s health and treatment abroad.
Talking to journalists at the Secretariat Hasan said pro-BNP doctors are saying things as tutored by the party leaders.
He said the opposition party has been doing politics over Khaleda’s health condition and on its demand to send her abroad for better treatment.
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At a press briefing on Sunday Dr FM Siddique, a member of Khaleda’s medical board, said that she has been diagnosed with liver cirrhosis. The treatment for her condition is available in Germany, the UK and the US, he said.
The BNP chief's other physicians said she has been suffering from liver, kidney and heart problems, rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, ophthalmological and dental complications.
Hasan questioned the doctors’ choice of only three countries for Khelada’s treatment.
Replying to a question he said “On Sunday I saw Professor Farhad Dalim Donar, executive director of Ziaur Rahman Foundation giving a statement on Khaleda’s health condition in the television. There was another statement signed by Fakhruzzaman, office secretary of Doctors Association of Bangladesh (DAB) along with some other doctors. All of these physicians are involved with BNP politics as well as being top leaders of DAB.”
According to their statements, there are treatments available for Khaleda Zia’s health issues only in the UK, Germany and the USA but not in India, Singapore and Bangkok, said Hasan.
Meanwhile many people from the US and European countries now go to Singapore and Bangkok for their treatments, he said.
“It is clear from the physicians’ statements yesterday (Sunday) that they were politically tutored as they mentioned only to the country’s where Tareque Rahman is or the countries that are near to him,” said the information minister.
Now BNP has spread their “politics on Khaleda;s treatment” to the doctors too.
Regarding BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir’s threat of creating disorder unless Khaleda is sent abroad for treatment, Hasan said “If he said so, a criminal case can be filed against him.”
“He himself confessed to planning to create disorder which is a criminal offense”, he said.
Khaleda, a 76-year-old former prime minister, was readmitted to Evercare Hospital on 13 November, six days after she had returned home from the hospital.
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On behalf of the family, Khaleda's younger brother, Shamim Iskander, submitted an application to the home ministry on November 11 urging the government to allow her to go abroad for better treatment.
However, Law Minister Anisul Huq said the government will consider Khaleda Zia’s appeal if she submits a fresh petition after returning to jail.