Dhaka: Detained Bangladesh Nationalist Party chief Khaleda Zia has refused get herself enrolled as an elector in protest of her detention when prison authorities approached her with the voter registration forms.

Jail authorities had gone to the sub-jail with voter registration forms twice for to get her registered as a voter, but she refused, Zia's counsel Ahmed Azam Khan told reporters.

"I am the only person who has been elected prime minister three times but they have kept me in jail without giving a single reason and all the cases filed against me are bailable," Khan said quoting her after his meeting with Zia at her makeshift sub-jail at the Parliament complex.

"I refuse to register as a voter being in jail and in protest against the illegal detention," she said. The lawyer said, jail authorities had gone twice to the sub-jail with voter registration forms to enroll her in the electoral roll as the voter registration process was underway in line with an election commission roadmap to stage general elections by December this year in the emergency-ruled Bangladesh.

Zia's arch-rival former premier and Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina, also detained in another sub-jail in the same compound, had got herself registered and become voter earlier this month.

Both the former premiers were detained after their arrest on several corruption charges last year as part of a massive anti-graft campaign being spearheaded by the interim administration that so far saw the detention or imprisonment of some 80 high-profile people, mostly politicians.

Hasina was arrested on July 16 of last year from her Dhanmandi residence, while Zia on September 3 from her Cantonment residence.
Source : PTI