New Delhi, Dec 31 (EFE).— Hundreds of thousands of mourners flooded the streets of Dhaka on Wednesday to attend the state funeral of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, a show of emotion at the end of a defining political era in Bangladesh.
The main ceremony, a nimaz-e-janaza or Islamic funeral rite, was attended by interim government chief and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, who led a gathering of political, military, and religious leaders paying their final respects to the two-time prime minister.
Images released by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) showed vast crowds surrounding Zia’s coffin in the capital.
The turnout prompted authorities to deploy more than 10,000 security personnel across Dhaka, government sources told EFE.
Following prayers in the capital, the funeral procession moved to the mausoleum of Ziaur Rahman, former president and Zia’s husband, where she will be laid to rest.
The burial symbolically reunites the founding couple of a political dynasty that rivalled for decades the family of the exiled prime minister, Sheikh Hasina.
Zia served as Bangladesh’s prime minister from 1991 to 1996 and again from 2001 to 2006.
She died on Tuesday in Dhaka after a prolonged illness linked to cirrhosis and years of declining health following periods of political imprisonment.
Her death, coupled with Hasina’s flight to India while facing a possible death sentence, is widely seen as closing a half-century chapter in Bangladeshi politics dominated by the rivalry between the two leaders, known collectively as the “begums,” an honorific title for Muslim women in South Asia.
Bangladesh is set to hold its first elections since Hasina’s fall in February 2026.
Zia’s son, Tarique Rahman, who returned to Bangladesh this month after 17 years in exile in London, announced on Monday that he will contest the general elections on Feb. 12 as a BNP candidate. EFE
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