At least three former ministers and advisers to Hasina have already been arrested in Bangladesh. | Photo: Bloomberg
As cases mount against her, including murder charges, Bangladesh will have to decide whether to ask India to extradite former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who resigned last week and fled to New Delhi, the country’s de facto foreign minister, Mohammad Touhid Hossain, said on Thursday.
Hossain said in an interview that he did not want to speculate, but noted that Hasina was dealing with “so many cases.” If the country’s interior and justice ministries were to decide, “we should ask for her…to be allowed to return to Bangladesh,” he said.
“That creates an embarrassing situation for the Indian government,” he said, adding that India “knows this and I am sure they will do something about it.” He did not elaborate.
India’s Ministry of External Affairs did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Hasina fled the country to India on August 5 after a violent uprising against her led to the deaths of nearly 300 people, many of them students. She has already been named in two murder cases, along with senior members of her cabinet.
Ataur Rahman, deputy director of the investigation department of the International Criminal Tribunal, a national court, said a third case has been launched: an investigation against 10 people, including Hasina, for murder, torture and genocide during the protests.
At least three former ministers and advisers of Hasina have already been arrested in Bangladesh.
In her only statement since her ouster, Hasina demanded an investigation into the killings and vandalism during the protests. She has not commented on the charges against her.
Hossain, a retired diplomat, is the foreign affairs adviser in the interim government led by Nobel laureate Mohammed Yunus, which was sworn in last week after Hasina’s ouster. The council of advisers includes other retired civil servants, lawyers, student protest leaders and some opposition politicians.
ROHINGYA REFUGEES
In his first interview with the international media since taking over, Hossain said Yunus was “very unhappy with the way the former prime minister is coming out of India”, he said during a meeting with the Indian envoy on Wednesday.
Hossain also asked India and other countries to take in more Rohingya refugees from Myanmar as Bangladesh could not take in more refugees.
Hossain said other countries should put pressure on Myanmar’s rebel group Arakan Army to “ensure this doesn’t happen,” referring to attacks on Rohingyas in their native Rakhine state.
“The world community must create a situation where they (the Rohingya) can go back,” he said.
The Arakan Army, an ethnic rebel militia in Rakhine State, is fighting the junta in Myanmar, which overthrew the civilian government in 2021. Both sides in the conflict have attacked Rohingya settlements.
Dozens of Rohingya were killed this week as they fled Rakhine State, the latest episode of violence against the persecuted Muslim minority in Buddhist Myanmar. More than 730,000 of them fled to Bangladesh in 2017 after a military-led crackdown the UN said was carried out with genocidal intent.
“It is a humanitarian problem that concerns the whole world, not just Bangladesh. We have done more than our share,” Hossain said.
He added that Dhaka wants good ties with everyone, including India, China and the US.
Discussing possible elections in Bangladesh, the adviser said there would be more clarity on the schedule in September.
“Because everyone, all my colleagues on the advisory board, are extremely busy trying to restore normality,” he said. “That should be restored by early September.”
He said the interim government’s priority is to implement “irreversible” reforms, “because our system is deeply corrupted and the institutions have been destroyed and need to be restored.”
Once elections are announced, he said, “we will disappear,” referring to the senior members of the interim government.
“None of us have political ambitions.”
(Only the headline and image of this report may have been edited by Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
First publication: Aug 15, 2024 | 10:54 PM IST