Sheikh Hasina vows to return, but will Bangladesh accept fugitive ex-PM?

Dhaka, Bangladesh – Two years after she was ousted and forced to flee to India following a student-led uprising, former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has made her strongest commitment yet to return, saying she is prepared to face arrest, imprisonment or even death, but cannot remain away from her supporters.

“I know I may be detained, I may be sent to prison,” Hasina, 78, said in an audio address to journalists from New Delhi on Wednesday. “They may try to enforce verdicts issued in fabricated cases. But fear cannot decide my duty to the people.”

Hasina’s address at an event hosted by New Delhi’s Foreign Correspondents’ Club of South Asia marked the second anniversary of the end of her 15-year rule , which saw widespread allegations of killings and arrests of political opponents, human rights violations and rigged elections.

In November, Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal – a notorious court Hasina herself founded to try her rivals – found her guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced her to death for ordering the killing of more than 1,400 people during the 2024 uprising.

Bangladesh has repeatedly asked India for Hasina’s extradition, but New Delhi, a close Hasina ally, says the request is under examination.

As Hasina spoke, protesters in capital Dhaka burned her effigy, while Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s government expressed “outrage” over New Delhi allowing the event, warning it could further strain diplomatic ties.

In Magura town, about 170km (105 miles) southwest of Dhaka, the ancestral house of former Bangladesh cricket captain ⁠Shakib Al Hasan was attacked by a mob angry over Hasina’s address.

Shakib, a former parliamentarian from Hasina’s Awami League party, has remained outside Bangladesh since the uprising. He has been accused of murder, embezzlement, fraud ⁠and money laundering by the authorities.