Dhaka: Bangladesh on Monday demanded that India extradite ousted former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, hours after she was sentenced to death for crimes against humanity. Hasina, 78, fled to India following her ouster during a mass uprising in August 2024, a move that strained ties between the two neighbours.
A Dhaka court also sentenced former interior minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal to death in absentia. Both were found guilty over a violent crackdown on last year’s student-led protests. Bangladesh stated that Kamal’s current whereabouts are also believed to be in India.
In a statement, Dhaka’s foreign ministry said India has an “obligatory responsibility” to extradite the convicts and warned that offering them asylum would be “extremely unfriendly and an affront to justice.” “This is also a duty for India, as per the extradition treaty existing between the two countries,” it added. “It would be an extremely unfriendly act and a contempt for justice if any other country were to grant asylum to these individuals convicted of crimes against humanity,” the ministry said.
India’s foreign ministry said it had “noted the verdict” but did not comment directly on potential extradition. It emphasised India’s commitment to “peace, democracy, inclusion and stability” in Bangladesh.
In her reaction, Hasina said the verdict has been made by a “rigged tribunal established and presided over by an unelected government with no democratic mandate.” Hasina said she was not afraid to face her “accusers” in a proper tribunal where the evidence can be weighed and tested fairly.
Hasina’s 15-year political career was marked by widespread human rights abuses, including mass detentions and extrajudicial killings of political opponents. Although Bangladesh had planned to request an Interpol red notice for Hasina last year, no record currently exists on the global police alert system.
Interim Bangladeshi leader Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, described the verdict as “historic” and called for calm, urging citizens to refrain from acts that could disrupt public order. Hasina’s son Sajeeb Wazed, currently in the United States, said in a message to The Associated Press that the “verdict is a joke and meaningless.
My mother is safe in India. The trials were so legally flawed they won’t survive any challenge once the rule of law returns to Bangladesh.” The development represents a new point of tension in India-Bangladesh relations, particularly regarding legal and diplomatic responsibilities over fugitives.
