NEW DELHI: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Saturday said it were up to former Bangladesh Premier Sheikh Hasina to decide how long she wants to stay put in India.
Her continued stay is a personal decision influenced by the “circumstances” that brought her to India, he said. Hasina fled to India on 5 August last year in face of a mass uprising and has remained there since.
Asked if she was welcome to remain in India for an indefinite period, Jaishankar quipped: “Well, that’s a different issue, isn’t it?”
The scheduled departure of critically ill former Bangladesh Prime Minister Khaleda Zia for London for advance treatment has been deferred to Sunday as an air ambulance offered by Qatar could not reach Dhaka, a senior leader of her party said.
The 80-year-old head of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), who was hospitalised on November 23, was originally scheduled to leave for London late on Thursday night or early Friday.
“If everything goes well, it (the air ambulance) may arrive tomorrow (Saturday) and if madam’s health permits travel and her medical board gives its approval, then, InshaAllah (God willing), she will fly out on the 7th (Sunday),” BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said in Dhaka.
According to a statement issued by the senior leader’s media cell, Ms. Alamgir said due to technical flaws, the special aircraft provided by Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani could not reach Dhaka as scheduled on Thursday but “it would expectedly reach Dhaka on Saturday”. A medical board looking after Ms. Zia in Delhi on Thursday decided to send her to London for advanced treatment, her party said.
Meanwhile, Zubaida Rahman, the physician wife of Zia’s only living offspring and acting chairman of BNP Tarique Rahman arrived in Dhaka on Friday to accompany her mother-in-law to London.
All picture credit; social media
