The Chehlum for Khaleda Zia’s youngest son Arafat Rahman Koko is being held at the BNP chief's Gulshan political office in the capital on Wednesday.
A press official of the BNP said the party is observing Khaleda’s younger son Arafat Rahman’s chehlum today with recitation from the Qur’an and a doa mahfil will also be held after the Maghrib prayers.
He said the BNP chief had urged party leaders and activists and people in general to pray for her recently demised son.
Arafat Rahman Koko, the younger son of Khaleda and BNP founder Ziaur Rahman, died of cardiac arrest in Malaysia on January 24.
Koko has been living in a rented house as a citizen in Ampang in Kuala Lumpur with his wife Shamila Rahman Sithi and daughters Zafia Rahman and Zahira Rahman.
Koko left Bangladesh in July 2008 for Thailand’s Bangkok for treatment, later moved to Malaysia and has never come back to Bangladesh since.
Following the 1/11 political changeover in 2007, Khaleda and her sons – Tarique and Koko – were arrested on graft charges.
Koko was arrested along with his mother Khaleda Zia on September 3, 2007, months after the army-backed caretaker government assumed office.
He was sentenced to six years in prison and fined Tk19 lakh on charges of siphoning off money to Singapore between 2004 and 2006 when his mother was the prime minister.
In 2009, the Awami League-led government assumed office and decided not to extend his parole further.
Because Koko defied summons, he was a fugitive in the eyes of justice and it meant that he was not eligible to appeal. BNP says the case against Koko was politically motivated.
Unlike his elder brother Tarique, Koko has remained largely aloof from politics.
Since news of Koko’s death reached Khaleda, many including Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, had tried and failed to meet her.
Khaleda had neither spoken to her senior party colleagues nor appeared before the media.
The grieving mother last saw her son a year and a half ago in Thailand.
The Chehlum, a religious ritual for a deceased, coincides with the hearing in two graft cases against the former prime minister.
