The press corps and law enforcers readied themselves yesterday around 12 noon as news spread outside the BNP’s Gulshan office that its chairperson, Khaleda Zia, would finally emerge from the office where she had been confined.
Suddenly, three female police personnel strode up to the main gate of the BNP office and turned to face the street.
One of them, attempting to conceal her actions, locked the gate shut. At her side, the two other policewomen gave her cover.
In swift succession, the pocket gate and emergency gate on the north side of the office were also locked.
Some 37 hours after Bangladesh Nationalist Party Chairperson Khaleda Zia was confined by police to her party’s Gulshan office, the locking of the office’s gates by policewomen effectively imprisoned the opposition politician.
The state minister for home affairs described the measures as an effort to provide better security for the opposition politician.
Because of the locked gates, the BNP chairperson’s lunch, sent around 2pm, was delivered to her by jumping over the north wall of the compound.
Khaleda came down from the second floor of the office around 3:48pm and BNP supporters repeatedly asked police to unlock the gate. But they would not, saying the gate would remain locked for Khaleda’s own safety.
“It would be not safe for the BNP chairperson to go outside the office,” the on-duty police officials said in response to BNP supporters’ requests.
Additional Deputy Commissioner of Gulshan Police Ayesha Siddiqa, who was coordinating the police members on duty in front of the Gulshan office, declined to comment on why the gates had been locked.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Deputy Commissioner (media and publication) Masudur Rahman told the Dhaka Tribune that the police needed to look into the situation to determine how a lock came to be placed on the main gate of the BNP Gulshan office.
Although the deputy commissioner for media would not give a direct answer, State Minister for Home Affairs Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said Khaleda had been kept in this condition for her own security.
“If the police feel it is safe, then she is free to go home or to her party’s Nayapaltan office, but the police will make that decision when they determine that she is safe,” he said.
Police will provide security to Khaleda Zia’s office as long as she needs it, the state minister said to reporters at his office yesterday.
Kamal said the government had taken the precautions for Khaleda because of a general diary (GD) filed on her behalf with the police station demanding better security.
Earlier on December 31, Khaleda’s lawyer Advocate Zakir Hossain filed the GD with Chawkbazar police station urging the police to ensure her security.
The GD mentions an attack on Khaleda’s private car on December 24 when she was on her way to a special court in Bakshibazar for a deposition hearing in the Charitable Trust and Zia Orphanage Trust corruption cases. The GD application said Khaleda needed better security during her trial.
Using the general diary as their rationale, police confined the BNP chief to her Gulshan office.
Police first cordoned off the entrance to the BNP Gulshan office around 11pm on Saturday.
Besides deploying more than one hundred personnel to the front of the office, police completely blocked the entrance to the office with a dozen trucks loaded with bricks and sand.
The state minister for home affairs said the trucks had been placed there to provide cover in the event of violence.
Police pick-up vans, armoured personnel carriers, water cannon and Jeeps had also been deployed to the party office.
Monirul Islam, joint commissioner of the Detective Branch of police and spokesperson for the DMP commissioner, denied that the BNP chairperson had been confined to her Gulshan office.
“Security had simply been increased in the area and she could have left on the first day if she wanted to,” he said.
Monirul further said it was the police’s responsibility to ensure the security of every citizen.
“Khaleda Zia, a former prime minister and chief of a major political party, requires good security. Because various political parties had announced programmes on January 5, her security was increased for her safety and nothing else,” Monirul said.
The trucks have been removed, as of 10pm yesterday, but police remain on the scene and the office is still locked, eyewitnesses said.
