interim head of the Bangladesh government, Muhammad Yunus. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters
Bangladesh’s Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus on Wednesday (December 3, 2025) visited critically ill former Prime Minister and Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) Chairperson Khaleda Zia at a private hospital in the capital.
“The Chief Adviser stayed at the hospital for nearly half an hour and urged her family, party leaders and activists to keep patience,” Mr. Yunus’ press wing said in a statement following his visit to the Evercare Hospital.
It added that the chief of a medical board formed to treat Ms. Zia briefed Yunus about her health condition and said experts of two major U.S. hospitals and several other physicians from “different countries, including Britain and China” were overseeing her treatment procedures.
“He reassured all sorts of government support (for Ms. Zia),” the statement read.
Ms. Yunus’ visit came a day after three armed forces chiefs, General Waker uz Zaman, Admiral M Nazmul Hassan and Air Chief Marshal Hasan Mahmood visited her at the Evercare Hospital, where Ms. Zia is being treated for the past 11 days.
No concrete update on Ms. Zia’s health was made by her doctors, family or party since her personal doctor and BNP Standing Committee Member AZM Zahid Hossain on Tuesday (December 2, 2025) said she is responding to treatment being provided.
“Begum Khaleda Zia has been undergoing treatment in the CCU of Evercare Hospital since November 27 and is responding to the treatment being provided by the doctors,” he told a media briefing outside the hospital.
According to media reports, Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a second medical team comprising four expert doctors hours after four British doctors arrived in Dhaka to assist the team treating the three-time Bangladesh premier.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday (December 1, 2025) voiced deep concern over the health of Khaleda Zia and offered all possible support.
“Deeply concerned to learn about the health of Begum Khaleda Zia, who has contributed to Bangladesh’s public life for many years,” Mr. Modi said in a post on social media.
“Our sincere prayers and best wishes for her speedy recovery. India stands ready to extend all possible support, in whatever way we can,” it added.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif also sent a letter wishing her a swift recovery, conveying his “sincerest prayers and good wishes”.
Ms. Zia was hospitalised on November 23 with multiple health issues, and she was shifted to the CCU of the Evercare Hospital on November 27 as her condition deteriorated.
The ex-premier’s younger brother Shamim Iskandar, his wife Kaniz Fatema, and Zia’s deceased younger son’s wife Sharmila Rahman are among the relatives present at the hospital.
Her elder son and BNP’s self-exiled acting chairman Tarique Rahman is overseeing the treatment from London.
Mr. Rahman has been living in London since 2008, while he was charged and convicted in several graft and criminal cases during the then military-backed caretaker government and subsequent Awami League regime of deposed Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
But the interim government withdrew all the cases, and courts acquitted him under revised judgments, while several advisers said there was no bar for his return and promised him the required security on his arrival.
Foreign adviser Touhid Hossain said that the authorities were ready to issue his travel document in a day if his passport had expired, but the Bangladesh embassy in the U.K. received no request so far for his travel document.
Published – December 04, 2025 01:38 am IST
