It was also a Saturday 34 years ago on May 30 when Khaleda Zia came to know she had become a widow. Her husband, military strongman and then president, Ziaur Rahman, had been assassinated in Chittagong earlier that morning.
This Saturday was no different from the last 20 days Khaleda has spent "confined" to her party office in Gulshan. But her habitually quiet afternoon was disrupted. Her two sisters-in-law, wives of her brothers Syeed and Shamim Iskandar, came to visit. The bore bad news.
The BNP chief's - Khaleda heads the Bangladesh Nationalist Party her husband had founded - younger son Arafat Rahman Koko had died of cardiac arrest around 2:30pm in Malaysia. He had been reportedly ill for long and was on his way to the hospital when Koko collapsed.
Khaleda has not come out of her first floor chambers since hearing the news. She was not taking any visitors, said a senior policymaker of the party which leads the political opposition on the streets.
"She is weeping," said one. Another said the 69-year widow and mother of two had taken ill.
This comes amid a relentless blockade of streets enforced by the BNP to oust the 'illegal ruling government'.
Khaleda had last seen Koko in May 2013 in Singapore. He had been living abroad for the last seven years.
Following the political changeover of January 11, 2007, Khaleda and her sons — Tarique Rahman and Arafat Rahman Koko -- were arrested on graft charges.
After their release on parole in 2008, Koko flew to Thailand for treatment with his family. Later, he moved to Malaysia and had been staying there.
Arafat was sentenced to six years in prison for laundering money during the BNP-Jamaat alliance's tenure in government. He was also fined TK19 crore.
Visitors from across party ranks started swarming to Khaleda Zia's office in Gulshan. Koko's mother-in-law had also come to visit Khaleda after hearing the news.
Koko's janaza will be held Sunday after Zohr prayers at Nagala Jama Mosque in Malaysia where he had become a citizen.
Party insiders say that Tarique Rahman, Koko's elder brother, who lives in London, will be attending the janaza. There is no word yet whether Khaleda Zia will travel to Malaysia.
