As Bangladesh’s ousted premier Sheikh Hasina plans to return to Dhaka by December this year, a number of Bangla politicians linked to current Prime Minister Tarique Rahman start making derogatory comments over the Awami League supremo. In all recent interviews with global news agencies, Hasina reiterated her decision to return home from India, currently used as a temporary shelter after escaping her home country because of the July-August 2024 student-led mass uprising. Lately the brave daughter of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujiur Rahman asked for her evoked passport and national identity card to enter Bangladesh, but it aroused various negative outbursts from responsible ministers of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led government in Dhaka. The concerned request from Hasina was placed to Bangladesh high commission in New Delhi through an email, which is reportedly forwarded to the Bangla foreign ministry office in Dhaka for further instructions. Her existing Bangladeshi passport and NID were quashed by the interim government, led by Professor Muhammad Yunus, and now she needs the fresh travel documents for any movement beyond India. The development indicates that Hasina really plans to leave India and if not Bangladesh she may try to pursue a third country for political shelter. Her elongated stay in India has somehow negatively impacted the already strained relation between the two neighbouring countries.
Reacting to Hasina’s appeal for a new passport and national identity card prior to her departure from New Delhi, Bangladesh law minister Md Asaduzzaman called her a ‘convicted criminal’ for whom Dhaka had already pushed for her repatriation under India-Bangladesh extradition treaty. Hasina, who faces death sentence by a special tribunal of Bangladesh for crimes against humanity during the turmoil two years back, needs to be brought back (not allowing her to return home personally), asserted the minister. Days back, the country’s deputy foreign minister Humaiun Kobir also stated that Dhaka wants Hasina to be handed over under an active extradition treaty between the two neighbours. He even termed Hasina a fugitive terrorist. Another deputy minister (information & broadcasting ministry) Yasser Khan Choudhury recently asked Hasina to return home and face the trial. “You fled after killing people, and now you are merely issuing threats via social media. The people of Bangladesh want you to return home as early as possible,” he added. The country’s home minister Salahuddin Ahmed even alleged that people from across the border (read Hasina and her Awami League associates) were inciting violence in Bangladesh following the ongoing agitation in the garment industry, the country’s economic backbone that employs around four million workers.
Recently, the International Crimes Tribunal awarded death sentences to Awami League joint general Mahbubul Alam Hanif for crimes against humanity. The same three-member ICT earlier convicted Hasina of killing hundreds of agitators during the 2024 mass agitation. Amazingly all the death-row convicts were tried in absentia as they remain fugitives and a large section of Bangladeshi nationals believe that they are secretly taking shelter in India. A consecutive fourth term premier Hasina was compelled to flee on 5 August 2024 to take a temporary shelter in India. Dhaka continues its mission to bring back Hasina for trials in Bangladesh, despite New Delhi’s sustained reluctance. The ICT chief prosecutor Aminul Islam dismissed Hasina’s request for a new passport and NID as a political stunt. Questioning if Hasina genuinely wants to return, Islam commented that she wants to get political attention from the international community and shift the blame on Dhaka for preventing her wish to return home. He also indicated that now Hasina is looking for a third country which may give her refuge and thus helping India to get rid of the ‘Hasina problem’.
Nonetheless, the Hasina factor prevented Rahman from taking up his first official overseas visit to India, but Malaysia and China. In fact, Rahman is still killing time to visit India, even though New Delhi extended its invitation multiple times. He also avoided attending the 18th BRICS outreach session in New Delhi on 12-13 September, as the current chair of BIMSTEC, understandably for Hasina’s presence in India. If Hasina departs India (even for a third country), it will definitely help easing bilateral ties between New Delhi and Dhaka yielding benefits to both peoples.
Sheikh Hasina’s choice, India’s problem, etc
