Hasina’s visit banned

BANGLADESH: Bangladesh’s ex-Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has been prevented from going to the port of Chittagong to see victims of a recent mudslide.

The country’s military-backed caretaker government barred her from leaving Dhaka to visit the southern port city which was recently hit by heavy rain.

Mudslides combined with the rain have so far killed about 120 people.

Sheikh Hasina said the visit would have been to console those who had suffered, and would not have been political.

“The move is inhuman, undemocratic, unconstitutional and against the freedom of individual... I am really hurt,” she said in a statement.

“I just wanted to stand by the affected people, there’s no politics behind that.”

Correspondents say that a huge deployment of police ringed her home in Dhaka to prevent her from travelling.

“As the country is under a state of emergency and all sorts of politics are banned, we have asked Sheikh Hasina not to go to Chittagong,” a senior police officer told the Reuters news agency.

Dhaka, Friday, BBC