January 13, 2014

Ershad freed from CMH, made Prime Minister’s special envoy

Jatiya Party chairman and former president Hossein Mohammad Ershad was freed from Combined Military Hospital in Dhaka on Sunday after a month-long mysterious admission to CMH. He was made ‘special envoy’ of prime minister Sheikh Hasina, with the status of a full minister.
Ershad, who had reportedly been ‘detained’ from his President Park house at Baridhara on December 12 and taken to the CMH, joined the oath taking ceremony of the new cabinet members at Ganabhaban in the afternoon as a guest after he had been ‘released’ from the CMH.
A gazette notification signed by cabinet secretary Mohammad Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan said Ershad had been made the special envoy of the prime minister with the status of a minister. 
The notification neither gave the details of the responsibilities of the special envoy and nor said under which law Ershad was appointed the special envoy. Another notification said the prime minister using the power vested in her by Section 3B(1) of the Rules of Business 1996, appointed the four advisers with the status of full minister.
After the oath taking ceremony, Ershad drove straight to his residence at about 6:30pm using the road inside Dhaka cantonment.  His party supporters crowded the house before he reached there. After getting down from his jeep, a composed Ershad went straight to his apartment without talking to anybody.
His party presidium member SM Faisal Chisti told the gathering - Sir has returned home in good health.
Ershad’s mysterious admission to the CMH had spun a lot of stories and one morning he was seen playing golf at Kurmitola Golf Club in Dhaka cantonment.
On Saturday, Ershad took oath as a lawmaker of the 10th parliament formed through the January 5 elections boycotted by the BNP-led opposition, after he was taken to the national assembly building by a group of people said to be intelligence men who took him back to the CMH.
Bangladesh Today