Mourners surround the Bangladesh Parliament in Dhaka to pay homage to Bangladesh’s first female prime minister.
A large crowd gathered in Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka for the state funeral of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, with mourners traveling from across the country to bid farewell to the eminent political leader.
Footage showed a huge crowd pouring into Parliament House on Manik Mia Street, where her flag-draped coffin was carried in a convoy on Wednesday.
Hundreds of thousands of her supporters and senior officials from India and Pakistan are expected to attend, and about 10,000 security personnel will line the streets to maintain order, officials said.
Khaleda, who became prime minister in 1991 and was the first female prime minister of the South Asian country, died on Tuesday at the age of 79 after a long illness.
Bangladesh declared three days of national mourning, with leaders from around the world paying tribute to the politician who was seen as the standard-bearer of the country’s democracy movement.
“The whole nation is saddened.”
Al Jazeera’s Tanvir Chaudhry, reporting from outside parliament in Dhaka, said emotions were running high among the large crowd gathered for the state funeral.
“A lot of people are crying,” he said.
“People were coming from all over the country to gather here. They said we had to come… to show that she would be gone.”
Mourners described her as “this country’s great leader” and said she “showed us the path to democracy.”
“The whole nation is saddened,” he added.
Sharmina Siraj, one of the mourners, told AFP news agency that Zia was a “source of inspiration” and that it was “hard to imagine a woman in a leadership position anytime soon”.
Shirazi, a 40-year-old mother of two, said the scholarships introduced by Zia to support girls’ education had “made a huge impact on girls’ lives”.
Minhaz Uddin, a former government official who watched Zia’s body pass from behind a barbed wire barricade, told AFP he had not voted for Zia but had come to honor the former leader.
“I came here with my grandson to bid farewell to a veteran politician whose contributions will always be remembered,” he said.
“A presence that guides me”
Mr Zia’s son Tariq Rahman, who returned to Bangladesh on Thursday after 17 years in self-imposed exile in the UK, said in a statement that the country was mourning the “loss of a leadership figure who shaped its aspirations for democracy”.
He said his mother had “endured repeated arrests, denial of medical care and relentless persecution,” but “her resilience … was irreversible.”
Mr. Chaudhry said Mr. Rahman, acting leader of Mr. Khaleda’s Bangladesh People’s Party, “will probably become the next prime minister” if his party wins the February elections.
The Indian government announced that Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar will attend the funeral, the most senior visit by an Indian official since the overthrow of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Khaleda’s biggest political rival.
High-ranking Pakistani officials were also scheduled to attend.
Khaleda’s body will be buried in a park outside Parliament House, along with her late husband Ziaur Rahman, who was assassinated in 1981 while he was president.
