Rizvi returns home from BNP office after 787 days

After staying for 787 days in the party’s Nayapaltan central office, BNP senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi returned home a day after party chairperson Khaleda Zia was released from jail for six months.

Rizvi left the BNP office, bag and baggage, at around 2:15pm on Thursday for his residence in Dhaka’s Adabar, reports UNB.

Amid the police drive against BNP leaders and speculation about sending Khaleda Zia to jail in graft cases, Rizvi took position at the BNP office on January 30, 2018 and had regularly been holding press briefings about the party’s positions on different issues and its decisions.

He used to stay in a tiny room on the second floor of the BNP office.

 “I stayed in the party office for 787 days, since the very beginning of a political transition in Bangladesh,” he said, adding, “as law enforcers started arresting our leaders and activists in a wholesale manner, I took shelter in the office to continue the party’s political activities. But our chairperson was sent to jail on February 8 that year.”

He further said, “After she went to jail, I took a vow that I would stay in the party office until her release. Since she was released on Wednesday, I have decided to go back home.”

Rizvi said he would regularly visit the office to carry out the party’s political activities despite returning home.

Khaleda Zia was released from jail on Wednesday for six months on an executive order considering her age and on humanitarian grounds.

The government issued the executive order for her release on two conditions -- receiving treatment at her Gulshan residence and not leaving Bangladesh.

The BNP chairperson was sent to Old Dhaka Central Jail on being sentenced to five years’ imprisonment by a special court in the Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case on February 8, 2018.