Bangladesh's interim government asks India to extradite Sheikh Hasina

New Delhi: The interim government led by Muhammad Yunus in Dhaka on Monday formally asked New Delhi to extradite Sheikh Hasina – four-and-a-half months after she had flown to an Indian Air Force base onboard a military aircraft in the wake of a mass uprising against her Awami League government in Bangladesh.

New Delhi confirmed the receipt of the request from the interim government in Dhaka for the extradition of Sheikh Hasina but refrained from commenting further on the issue.

“We informed the Indian government through a Note Verbale (diplomatic note) that we want her (Hasina) back for the judicial process,” said Touhid Hossain, the advisor (equivalent to minister) on foreign affairs in the interim government in Dhaka. He was talking to journalists in the capital of the neighbouring country.

Hasina and her close aides as well as several Awami League leaders and activists had been implicated in multiple criminal cases over the past few months, including the ones related to corruption, murders, abductions, crimes against humanity, and genocide.

The International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) on November 26 issued arrest warrants against Hasina and 45 others in connection with alleged crimes against humanity committed during the July-August protests against the Awami League government.

The ICT had been set up by the Awami League government led by Hasina, herself, in 2009 to investigate and prosecute the suspects for the genocide committed by people, who had been loyal to the Pakistan Army, during the 1971 war for liberation of East Pakistan into Bangladesh.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Government of Bangladesh on Monday acted on a letter from the Ministry of Home Affairs and sent the note verbale to the Ministry of External Affairs of the Government of India through Dhaka’s diplomatic mission in New Delhi.

“We have sent a letter to the foreign ministry regarding her (Hasina’s) extradition. The process is currently underway,” Jahangir Alam, the advisor on home affairs of the interim government, told journalists earlier in the day.

The interim government in Dhaka sought her extradition from India under the treaty that the two nations had inked when she, herself, had been at the helm of the government in Bangladesh.

Four years after Hasina returned to the office of prime minister in Dhaka in January 2009, Bangladesh and India signed the extradition treaty on January 28, 2013. It was during her third term as the prime minister that the two nations on July 28, 2016, signed an agreement to amend the treaty to facilitate expeditious extradition of fugitive criminals.

“We confirm that we have received a Note Verbale from the Bangladesh High Commission today in connection with an extradition request,” Randhir Jaiswal, the spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi, said. “At this time, we have no comment to offer on this matter,” he added.

An agitation by students and youths against reservation in jobs in June and July had turned into a mass uprising in August as Hasina’s Awami League government had launched a nationwide crackdown on the protesters.

Hasina, her sister Sheikh Rehana, and some of her aides had flown onboard a military aircraft to the Indian Air Force base at Hindon near New Delhi on August 5 – shortly before mobs of protesters had stormed into her official residence – Gana Bhavan – in Dhaka.

A day after Hasina and her entourage had arrived at the Indian Air Force base in Hindon near Delhi, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar had said that she had on very short notice sought the approval of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government to come to India “for the moment”.

Though it had been initially speculated that she might leave for Norway, Finland, or the United Kingdom soon, Hasina and her entourage continued to stay in India.

An interim government with Nobel-laureate economist Muhammad Yunus had taken over on August 8. New Delhi’s relations with Dhaka came under stress over the past few months as Yunus and his advisors started playing down reports and dismissing India’s concerns about atrocities on the Hindus and other minority communities in Bangladesh.

Hasina, the daughter of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and her family have a special relationship with New Delhi that dates back to 1971 when the Indian Army defeated the Pakistan Army and helped liberate East Pakistan into Bangladesh.

After their father and the rest of the family had been assassinated in Dhaka in 1975, Hasina and Rehana had been secretly flown in from Berlin to New Delhi.

They had lived at a safe house of the intelligence agencies at Pandara Road in New Delhi for six long years as the guests of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s government.

When Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri visited Dhaka on December 9, the interim government of Bangladesh conveyed to him its displeasure over the statements the deposed prime minister had made recently from India.

She, however, continued to deliver virtual addresses to Awami League supporters in Europe, criticising Yunus and others for orchestrating the violence during protests against reservation in government recruitment.