The government has turned down Khaleda Zia’s family’s application to allow her to be taken abroad for urgent treatment, which her lawyer and her party leaders have termed as a political vendetta. The government’s reasoning, as explained by Law Minister Anisul Huq, was that the application, on which the government has suspended the jail sentence of Khaleda Zia and released her from jail on two conditions, has been disposed of and has become a “past and closed transaction.” He also said that the decision to suspend her sentence was made under section 401(1) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC). This refusal to allow treatment abroad could not have come at a worse time, as the former prime minister’s continuous illness has reached a critical stage with life-threatening conditions. Besides, political distrust and division in the country over the coming election, too, have become highly charged. Against this context, it is hard to discard the notion that politics played no part in this ...