DHAKA: Bangladesh’s illness-plagued opposition leader Khaleda Zia made her first public appearance in six years on Thursday, months after her release from house arrest following the ouster of longtime foe Sheikh Hasina. The ferocious rivalry between the two former premiers — born in blood and cemented in prison — has defined politics in the Muslim-majority nation for decades. Zia was jailed in 2018 for graft but was released in August, hours after Hasina fled to neighboring India when a student-led national uprising brought an end to her 15 years of iron-fisted rule.

Her presence on Thursday at a reception to mark the country’s Armed Forces Day marked her first public appearance since her conviction. She was welcomed by Muhummad Yunus, a Nobel laureate helming an interim government charged with restoring the country’s democracy, with the pair photographed sitting together and chatting amiably.

“We are particularly lucky and honored today that Begum Khaleda Zia... has graced us with her presence,” Yunus said. “We are all delighted that she joined us today.” Zia, 79, has been in declining health for years, is confined to a wheelchair with rheumatoid arthritis, and also suffers from diabetes and cirrhosis of the liver. Until Thursday, she had kept out of the spotlight despite her release, apart from briefly addressing a political rally in a video message from a hospital bed. Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) said that more than two dozen of its leaders were also in attendance.

Party secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir lost his composure and broke into tears when he saw Zia at the event, newspaper Prothom Alo reported. Zia spent most of her sentence under house arrest after she was relocated from prison during the coronavirus pandemic, but she was denied repeated requests to travel abroad for medical treatment. Alamgir told a Wednesday rally in the city of Feni that Zia was “very ill, having been kept in jail on false charges in a small, damp cell”. Bangladeshi media outlets reported in October that Zia was expected to travel abroad for medical care in the near future, without giving a precise date. — AFP