Bangladesh on Monday challenged ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina to seek extradition from India if she is serious about returning, while officials review an application to renew her passport.
Hasina’s 15-year rule ended in a mass uprising she tried to crush. She has vowed to return to Bangladesh in December. She was sentenced to death in absentia in November 2025 for crimes against humanity over the 2024 crackdown on protesters. She fled to India, a long-standing ally, in 2024, has not been seen in public since, and has joined online news conferences by telephone. New Delhi says the extradition request is under legal review, and her continued presence there has strained relations with Dhaka.
Home Minister Salahuddin Ahmed told reporters that authorities were examining Hasina’s request for a new passport. He described her as a convicted offender who had taken refuge abroad. “The legal basis of the application, whether it followed due process, and whether there is a right to apply for a passport — all those matters are being reviewed,” he said. He added that Bangladesh had already sent India a letter seeking her extradition through due process.
Hasina’s British lawyers have asked for her documents to be renewed after what they called the reported revocation of her passport. A letter from London-based Matrix Chambers, addressed to Bangladesh’s high commission in New Delhi and seen by AFP, requested renewal of her passport and made no mention of when or where she planned to travel. Writing to Preeti Rahman, acting high commissioner at Bangladesh’s embassy in Delhi, the lawyers said that in view of the reported revocation of her Bangladeshi passport and National Identity Card by the interim government and other authorities, they requested the steps needed to issue a new passport and identity card. They asked for the applications to be processed expeditiously on the basis of her Bangladeshi nationality and in line with obligations under international human rights instruments.
Md Aminul Islam, chief prosecutor of the court that sentenced Hasina to death, dismissed the application as “nothing but a political stunt”.
Hasina has repeatedly said she intends to return. In an email to AFP she said she was “fully aware” she faced being hanged. She has told Reuters she plans to return to surrender before a court, and her aides said on Monday that the date would be announced once formalities were completed.
Junior foreign minister Humaiun Kobir said she should surrender and face justice. “Let her tell India: ‘Yes, there is an extradition treaty. Please hand me over. I killed this many people, and I am ready to face the sentence. Please execute me there’,” he told reporters. He also called her “a thief, a bandit and a terrorist who fled” and asked how she could want to come back after fleeing.
The government of Tarique Rahman, whose party won February elections from which Hasina’s Awami League was barred, has said it would ensure due legal process in all cases against her if she returns. Her pledge is a political problem for that government: many Bangladeshis want to see her hanged, while others fear her return could rally former supporters and set off a fresh clash between rival camps.
Police said on Monday they had arrested 12 people over a series of petrol-bomb attacks this month, including attacks on property, an empty bus and police vehicles, with no casualties. Dhaka police spokesman Md Akhtar Hossain said the suspects were members of the banned Awami League. “They are trying to create panic among people,” he told AFP, adding that police were remaining vigilant.