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Agence France-Presse

Bangladesh’s war crimes tribunal is to seek the extradition of ousted leader Sheikh Hasina from neighbouring India, its chief prosecutor has said, accusing her of carrying out “massacres”.
Weeks of student-led demonstrations in Bangladesh escalated into mass protests last month, with Hasina quitting as prime minister and fleeing by helicopter to old ally India on August 5, ending her iron-fisted 15-year rule.
“As the main perpetrator has fled the country, we will start the legal procedure to bring her back,” Mohammad Tajul Islam, chief prosecutor of Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal (ICT), told reporters on Sunday.
The ICT was set up by Hasina in 2010 to investigate atrocities during the 1971 independence war from Pakistan.
Hasina’s government was accused of widespread human rights abuses, including the mass detention and extrajudicial killing of her political opponents.


“Bangladesh has a criminal extradition treaty with India which was signed in 2013, while Sheikh Hasina’s government was in power,” Islam added.
“As she has been made the main accused of the massacres in Bangladesh, we will try to legally bring her back to Bangladesh to face trial”.
Hasina, 76, has not been seen in public since fleeing Bangladesh, and her last official whereabouts are a military airbase near India’s capital New Delhi. Her presence in India has infuriated Bangladesh.
Dhaka has revoked her diplomatic passport, and the countries have a bilateral extradition treaty which would permit her return to face criminal trial.
A clause in the treaty, however, says extradition might be refused if the offence is of a “political character”.
If India wants to keep her until the time Bangladesh wants her back, the condition would be that she has to keep quiet
Muhammad Yunus, Bangladesh’s interim leader
Interim leader Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who took over after the uprising, last week said Hasina should “keep quiet” while exiled in India until she is brought home for trial.
“If India wants to keep her until the time Bangladesh wants her back, the condition would be that she has to keep quiet,” Yunus, 84, told the Press Trust of India news agency.
His government has been under public pressure to demand her extradition and trial over the hundreds of demonstrators killed during the weeks of unrest that ultimately toppled her.
More than 600 people were killed in the weeks leading up to Hasina’s ousting, according to a preliminary United Nations report, suggesting the toll was “likely an underestimate”.
Bangladesh last month opened an investigation led by a retired high court judge into hundreds of enforced disappearances by security forces during Hasina’s rule.


Bangladesh’s uprising offers lessons for Pakistan’s democracy

Will Modi meet Yunus amid ‘highly sensitive’ India-Bangladesh ties over Hasina ousting?

Citing ‘massacres’, Bangladesh seeks Sheikh Hasina’s extradition from India

India faces pressure from Bangladesh to extradite Sheikh Hasina over her ‘atrocities’

Bangladesh

Protesters in Dhaka celebrate beside a defaced portrait of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina after news of her resignation earlier this month. Photo: AP

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets his Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Hasina in New Delhi on June 22. Photo: AP

Head of Bangladesh’s new interim government Muhammad Yunus meets relatives of people who went missing during ex-PM Sheikh Hasina’s rule. Photo: AFP

A rally in Dhaka to mark one month since the ousting of Bangladesh’s ex-PM Sheikh Hasina. Photo: AFP

A view of the Dhaka-Chittagong highway in Bangladesh after it was hit by flooding in August. Photo: dpa

With ousting of Bangladesh’s Sheikh Hasina, is India losing its South Asia allies to China?

Indian Border Security Force officers stand guard at the Petrapole-Benapole border between India and Bangladesh on Friday. Photo: EPA-EFE

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bhutan’s King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck during their meeting at the Tashichho Dzong Palace in Bhutan’s capital Thimphu in March. Photo: by Indian Press Information Bureau (PIB) / AFP

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi (right) shakes hands with Mohamed Muizzu, the Maldives’ president, during a swearing-in ceremony in New Delhi, India, on June 9. Modi was sworn in for a third straight term as India’s prime minister in June. Photo: Bloomberg

Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina resigns, sending ‘shock waves’ across the region

Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year rule of the country ended on Monday as she fled weeks of deadly protests. 
Photo: AFP

Bangladeshi students hold placards expressing their opinions during a rally at Central Shaheed Minar, to demand justice for the victims killed in the recent countrywide violence during anti-quota protests. Photo: dpa

Men run past a shopping centre which was set on fire by protesters during a rally against Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her government demanding justice for the victims killed in the recent countrywide deadly clashes, in Dhaka, Bangladesh on Sunday. Photo: AP

Bangladesh army personnel stand guard during a curfew following clashes between police and Anti-Discrimination Student Movement activists amid anti-government protests in Shahbag area of Dhaka on August 5. Photo: AFP

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina delivers a joint statement at the Government House in Bangkok, Thailand, on April 26 2024. Photo: EPA-EFE

Sheikh Hasina’s fall in Bangladesh shows history’s cruel irony

Protesters try to demolish a large statue of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, father of Bangladesh’s former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, after she resigned in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on August 5. Photo: AP

Bangladeshi Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus (centre) talks to the media outside the Dhaka Labour Court in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on January 1. Photo: EPA-EFE

‘Hasina’s people’ flee Bangladesh, fearing reprisal and prosecution

Protesters storm then Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s palace in Dhaka on August 5. Photo: TNS

Then Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at a hotel in New York in 2022. Photo: AFP

Major General Ziaul Ahsan, a former Bangladeshi military intelligence chief, at a court in Dhaka. Photo: AFP

Salman F Rahman, a private industry affairs adviser to ex-Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina, at a court in Dhaka. Photo: Reuters

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Diplomacy

Hasina’s government was accused of human rights abuses including the mass detention and extrajudicial killing of her political opponents


Hasina’s government was accused of human rights abuses including the mass detention and extrajudicial killing of her political opponents.


Protests around the world

India

Asia elections