India, as a neighbour, had a duty to give shelter to former Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina after she fled her country in August 2024, Indian High Commissioner in Bangladesh Dinesh Trivedi has said.
However, Dhaka has been angered by her interviews while in self-exile, including a recent one in which she announced her plan to return to Bangladesh — where she faces a death sentence — in December. Bangladesh Prime Minister Tarique Rahman gave the opening remarks at the fifth edition of the event, but was not present when Trivedi made the comments. “At that point in time, she (Hasina) was still the prime minister of Bangladesh. We had hardly any choice on that. Her extradition was first sought by the interim administration led by Muhammad Yunus, and the demand has been repeated by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) government led by Rahman.
Because situations are such where, at times, you are not prepared for it…..What was our choice, it was our duty as a neighbour to accept the reality of life. He was speaking at the Bay of Bengal Conversation 2026 in Dhaka on Saturday when he made the remarks. Hasina has lived in India in self-exile since she fled Bangladesh after the sudden collapse of her government in the face of student-led protests in August 2024. In her first telephonic interview with Indian media, Hasina questioned the BNP government’s move to link her extradition to a possible visit to New Delhi by Prime Minister Tarique Rahman, saying she intends to return home on her own by December.Hasina, who spoke to HT from an unspecified location, also questioned the BNP government’s decision to acquire combat jets from China under a $2.3-billion deal at a time when Bangladesh is grappling with electricity and gas shortages, lack of fertilisers and a cost of living crisis.
Trivedi said India “hardly had any choice” as “at that point in time, she (Hasina) was still the prime minister of Bangladesh”. He also said the Awami League leader was not brought to India by the Indian Air Force or Army. If you would have said that no, we are not going to accept, we don’t give landing permission, things would have been I don’t know what,” Trivedi said. “Nobody can give you a time frame (over Hasina’s return),” he said, in response to questions related to Dhaka’s repeated requests for the former prime minister’s extradition.
Her presence in India has remained an irritant in bilateral ties, which improved somewhat after the Tarique Rahman government came to power earlier this year.
