The New Nation - Internet Edition

Shahidul Islam

The Awami League yesterday formally requested the Government to release detained party Chief Sheikh Hasina unconditionally to facilitate her medical treatment in the USA, while a Court in Dhaka ordered the police department to return her passport immediately.

Awami League (AL) Acting General Secretary Syed Ashraful Islam signed the letter, which was carried by party leaders Advocate Abdul Mannan Khan, Ashim Kumar Ukil, BM Mojammel Hossain and Ahmed Hossain and handed over to Khairul Islam, an official at the Chief Adviser’s Office (CAO) at about 4:00 last afternoon.

When contacted last night, Additional Secretary to the Chief Adviser neither confirmed nor rejected receipt of the AL letter to the head of the Army-backed interim Government.

In a related development, the Court of Chief Metropolitan Magistrate in the capital yesterday asked the Police department to return Sheikh Hasina’s passport immediately.

Judge of the Court Mohammad Golam Rabbani issued the directive in a verbal order. A written order is likely to be issued today, Advocate Shahara Khatun, one of the counsels of the AL Chief, said, adding, “Sheikh Hasina is ill and she needs the passport back to travel abroad for medical treatment.”

The Court order came after Hasina's lawyers filed a request to the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate's (CMM) Court in Dhaka city.

Sources close to the former Prime Minister’s team of lawyers led by Barrister Rafiq-ul Haque and Barrister Sahfiq Ahmed told The New Nation last night that they would move the High Court if the Government did not release Sheikh Hasina immediately.

After handing over the party letter at the CAO, AL Office Secretary Abdul Mannan Khan told journalists at the party’s Dhanmondi office that leaders, workers and supporters are very concerned over the health conditions of the former Prime Minister so they all want that Government take appropriate steps to send her to the USA “immediately”.

When asked about the AL letter to the Chief Adviser, party insiders said the latter pleaded, “Senior medical experts after examining her health condition both inside the prison and at the Square Hospital repeatedly suggested the authorities concerned to send her abroad immediately since treatment of her ear complications and test for allergy, she developed recently is not possible in Bangladesh.”

“Former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will become totally deaf, if she is not under constant care of the specialist physicians of the US Medical Centre that treated her earlier,” the letter said, adding, “She developed the latest allergic complications due to her prolong confinement in damp environment and lack of proper medical attention.”

The letter pointed out that Sheikh Hasina’s husband Dr M Wazed Mia and her uncle Sheikh Kabir Hossain have separately requested the Chief Adviser to arrange her treatment in the US on an emergency basis.

All her relatives and AL leaders, workers, supporters as well as her well-wishers, at home and abroad, are deeply concerned about her life. Since Sheikh Hasina, the eldest of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, is suffering from multiple ailments not curable in Bangladesh.

Sheikh Hasina, who was arrested on July 16 last year and facing trial in several corruption cases, developed acute ear and eye problems on August 21, 2004, when she suffered grievous injuries in a barbarous grenade attack on her party rally in front of the Bangabandhu Avenue headquarters in the city.

Specialist physicians of the United States installed special hearing aid to her ears that involves constant monitoring and adjustments.

Meanwhile, Sheikh Hasina’s two personal physicians-Eye specialist Prof Syed Modassir Hossain and Prof ABM Abdullah (Medicine), who were members of a team of eight doctors that examined Sheikh Hasina’s health on Tuesday, were not allowed to perform her health checkup at Square Hospital yesterday.

However, a 7-member medical board comprising doctors of the Square Hospital was formed for treatment of the ailing AL Chief. Director of the hospital Prof Sanwar Hossain is heading the team.