Khaleda Zia’s funeral: Jaishankar meets Tarique Rahman in Dhaka, hands over PM Modi’s condolence letter

India’s External Affairs Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar on Wednesday (December 31, 2025) met Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s acting Chairperson Tarique Rahman and conveyed condolences on behalf of the Government of India on the passing away of former Prime Minister of Khaleda Zia.

Khaleda Zia funeral LIVE

This is the first visit by Mr. Jaishankar to Dhaka since the interim government took charge on August 5, 2025. The foreign affairs adviser of the interim government, Touhid Hossein was among those who met Mr. Jaishankar.

The meeting between Mr. Jaishankar and Mr. Rahman in ‘Feroza’, the residence of the late Begum Zia, marks the first occasion when an Indian Minister met Mr. Rahman who returned from London on December 25, 2025 after nearly 18 years of self-exile in London where he had been based because of his disputes with the previous government of Sheikh Hasina that was deposed by a student-people uprising last year.

Mr. Jaishankar carried a letter from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had condoled the demise of the veteran leader whom he had met in June 2015 during one of his early visits to Dhaka as the Indian PM. Amir Khosru Mahmud Choudhury, a senior member of the National Standing Committee of the BNP also interacted with Mr. Jaishankar.

Earlier on Wednesday (December 31), Zia’s mortal remains were brought to ‘Feroza’ in the Gulshan neighbourhood of capital Dhaka, where immediate family members and members of the Standing Committee of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party held prayers and paid their last respects.

Several regional and global figures are in Dhaka to pay their respects to Zia, who had been part of Bangladesh’s public life since the early 1970s when her late husband, President Ziaur Rahman, debuted in the publc life as a military figure who had rebelled against the Pakistani army and trained units of the Mukti Bahini that fought to free Bangladesh.

Pakistan High Commission in Dhaka announced in the meanwhile that Pakistan National Assembly’s Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq had also reached Dhaka to participate in the funeral prayer of Begum Zia. Earlier diplomatic sources had informed that Foreign Minister of Pakistan Ishaq Dar was expected to reach Dhaka but Mr. Dar later announced that Mr. Sadique would represent Pakistan at the funeral prayers.

Mr. Rahman said, “To many, she was the leader of the nation, an uncompromising leader, the Mother of Democracy, the Mother of Bangladesh. Today, the country mourns the loss of a guiding presence that shaped its democratic aspirations.