Guwahati: As Bangladesh’s ousted premier Sheikh Hasina plans to return to Dhaka by December this year, a number of Bangladeshi politicians linked to current Prime Minister Tarique Rahman have started making derogatory comments about the Awami League supremo.
In all her recent interviews with global news agencies, Hasina reiterated her decision to return home from India, which she currently uses as a temporary shelter after escaping her country following the July-August 2024 student-led mass uprisings. Lately, the daughter of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman asked for her revoked passport and national identity card to enter Bangladesh, but the request triggered various negative outbursts from ministers of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led government in Dhaka.
Hasina’s request was sent to the Bangladesh High Commission in New Delhi through an email, which was reportedly forwarded to the Bangladesh Foreign Ministry in Dhaka for further instructions. Her existing Bangladeshi passport and NID were cancelled by the interim government led by Professor Muhammad Yunus, and she now needs fresh travel documents for any movement beyond India.
The development indicates that Hasina actually plans to leave India and, if not for Bangladesh, she may try to pursue a third country for political shelter. Her prolonged stay in India has negatively impacted the already strained relations 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 sought repatriation under the India-Bangladesh extradition treaty. Hasina, who faces a death sentence from a special tribunal in Bangladesh for crimes against humanity during the turmoil two years ago, needs to be brought back, rather than being allowed to return home personally, the minister asserted.
Days earlier, the country’s Deputy Foreign Minister Humaiun Kobir also stated that Dhaka wants Hasina to be handed over under the active extradition treaty between the two neighbours. He even termed Hasina a fugitive terrorist.
Another deputy minister, Yasser Khan Choudhury of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, recently asked Hasina to return home and face 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 had earlier convicted Hasina of killing hundreds of agitators during the 2024 mass agitation.
Incidentally, 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 temporary shelter in India.
Dhaka continues its mission to bring back Hasina for trial 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 whether Hasina genuinely wants to return, Islam commented that she wants to draw political attention from the international community and shift the blame onto Dhaka for preventing her from returning home.
He also indicated that Hasina is now looking for a third country that may offer her refuge, thereby helping India get rid of the ‘Hasina problem’.
Nonetheless, the Hasina factor prevented Rahman from making his first official overseas visit to India, with Malaysia and China being his destinations instead. In fact, Rahman is still delaying a visit to India, even though New Delhi has 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 because of Hasina’s presence in India.
If Hasina departs India, even for a third country, it will definitely help ease bilateral ties between New Delhi and Dhaka, yielding benefits to the people of both countries.