Syed Moazzem Hossain Alal, a member of the BNP chairperson’s advisory council, asked on Friday that the government return the house on Shaheed Mainul Road in Dhaka Cantonment that was repossessed by the Awami League administration and owned by Khaleda Zia, the party’s chairperson.

Speaking to reporters at the grave of BNP founder Ziaur Rahman, he also said BNP has the confidence in the newly formed Election Commission.

“Khaleda Zia was forcibly ousted from her residence at Mainul Road in just a single dress, even before the case concerning the matter was resolved. The government should take steps to help her heal from the trauma associated with that house,” the BNP leader said.

Saying that the BNP chief was unfairly evicted from her Cantonment house, he urged the government to take steps to ensure justice for her.

As the wife of a former army chief, Alal said it was natural for Khaleda to attend the Armed Forces Day reception in the cantonment, but she was unable to do so for nearly a decade.

“The expression of Khaleda Zia that we witnessed at Senakunja was like a bird that had been chained for years and was finally set free,” he said.

On April 8, 2009, the Awami League government cancelled the allotment of Khaleda Zia’s Shaheed Mainul Road house in Dhaka Cantonment, citing several irregularities in the allotment within the military zone.

Subsequently, on November 13, 2010, she was evicted from the house where she had lived for 38 years, since her husband Ziaur Rahman served as deputy chief of the army.

After Zia’s assassination in 1981, then army chief HM Ershad allocated the 2.72 acre property to her at a token price.