By DPA
Dhaka : Wajed Mia, a retired nuclear scientist and husband of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, has joined hundreds of thousands of supporters of the ailing jailed leader in demanding she be allowed to receive medical treatment abroad, prison officials said Wednesday.
Mia appealed to the military backed interim government to release Hasina from her isolated makeshift prison quarters where her health has been deteriorating since her arrest in July last year.
Mia, who once chaired the national atomic energy commission, made the appeal on behalf of his wife in a letter to the Chief Adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed, who heads the interim non-party government.
Hasina’s release has become the principal demand of many political parties, social bodies and cultural groups in the overwhelmingly Muslim country also known for its volatile politics, analysts say.
The 63-year old president of the opposition Awami League has been suffering from health problems since she sustained injuries on her ears in a grenade attack on a rally in Dhaka in 2004.
More than a score of people were killed and many others injured in the multiple blasts blamed on the banned local Islamist body Harkatul Jihad, several of whose activists are in jail pending trial.