BNP to pay homage to Zia on Eid

BNP will pay homage to the party's founder and late president Ziaur Rahman on Tuesday on the occasion of Eid-ul-Fitr.

Party secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir along with its senior leaders will place a wreath at Zia’s grave at 11 am, paying homage to him, said party senior joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi.

They will also offer fateha and a special munajat there seeking the salvation of Zia’s departed soul, he said.

Besides, BNP standing committee members will exchange greetings with Khaleda Zia in her Gulshan residence in the evening, reports UNB.

BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia used to offer fateha at Zia’s grave on the occasion of Eids every year until she was sent to jail in 2018. But BNP senior leaders have been observing the programme on Eid day since then in her absence.

Khaleda was sent to the Old Dhaka Central Jail as a lower court sentenced her to five years' imprisonment in Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case on February 8, 2018. Later, she was found guilty in another corruption case the same year.

Amid the coronavirus outbreak, the government temporarily freed Khaleda Zia from jail through an executive order suspending her sentence on March 25, 2020, with conditions that she will stay in her Gulshan house and will not leave the country. It has since been extended twice.

Meanwhile, BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir has greeted all the Muslims of Bangladesh and elsewhere across the world on the occasion of Eid-ul-Fitr and wished them ‘Eid Mubarak’.

In a message, he hoped that Eid will bring happiness, peace, prosperity and well-being to the country’s people and the Muslim Ummah.

Fakhrul bemoaned that the nation is going to celebrate Eid-ul-Fitr at a time when their beloved leader and former Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia has remained under house arrest being subjected to the Awami League government’s political vengeance.

He urged the country’s people to pray to the Almighty Allah so that she can lead the nation again getting released from jail and recovering from her illness.