Dhaka: Bangladesh’s former prime minister and Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) chairperson Khaleda Zia passed away early Tuesday in Dhaka following a long battle with multiple health complications. She was 80. Zia breathed her last at a private hospital in the capital, where she had been under intensive medical care for several weeks.
According to medical sources, Khaleda Zia was admitted in late November for routine health evaluations. During the examinations, doctors identified a serious chest infection, leading to her prolonged hospitalisation. As her condition deteriorated within days, she was shifted to the Coronary Care Unit, where she remained under constant monitoring. She had been suffering from several chronic ailments, including cardiac problems, diabetes, and age-related joint disorders.
Khaleda Zia was a towering figure in Bangladesh’s political history and the country’s first female prime minister. She served three terms between 1991 and 2006, shaping national politics for over a decade and emerging as one of South Asia’s most influential women leaders. Her political rise followed the assassination of her husband, former President Ziaur Rahman, who was killed during a failed coup in 1981. In the years that followed, she led popular movements that played a role in ending military rule and restoring democratic governance in Bangladesh.
Few outside political circles were aware of Zia’s roots in India. Born in 1945 in Jalpaiguri, now in West Bengal, her early childhood was spent in undivided British India. After the Partition in 1947, her family relocated to what was then East Pakistan, marking the beginning of her lifelong association with Bangladesh.
Her political journey was also marked by controversy and prolonged legal battles. Arrested in 2007 on corruption charges, Zia consistently maintained that the cases were driven by political vendetta. In 2018, she was sentenced to a lengthy jail term in connection with multiple cases. However, in a significant legal development, Bangladesh’s Supreme Court acquitted her in the final pending case earlier this year, restoring her legal standing.
At the time of her death, several family members were present at the hospital, including her elder son Tarique Rahman and other close relatives.
