August 23, 2024
DHAKA – After the interim government revoked all diplomatic passports yesterday, questions have now arisen as to how long Sheikh Hasina can stay in India and whether she faces a possible extradition.
Hasina, the former prime minister of Bangladesh, fled to India after being forced to resign in the face of a student-led mass uprising on August 5.
According to the Indian visa policy, Bangladeshi citizens holding diplomatic or official passports are eligible for visa-free entry and a stay of up to 45 days.
As of yesterday, Hasina has already spent 18 days in India.
She does not hold any passport other than the diplomatic passport issued in her name, according to government sources.
The cancellation of her diplomatic passport and its associated visa privileges may put her at risk of extradition.
The extradition of Hasina, who is facing 51 cases, including 42 for murder, falls within the legal framework of the extradition treaty signed between Bangladesh and India.
TREATY AND POLITICAL REALITY
According to the treaty signed in 2013 and amended in 2016, “extradition may be refused if the offence for which it is requested is an offence of a political character.”
It also says that certain offences — like murder — “shall not be regarded as offences of a political character” for the purposes of the treaty.
However, one of the grounds for refusal of extradition is if the charges being pressed have not been “made in good faith, in the interest of justice”.
A former Indian High Commissioner to Bangladesh, choosing anonymity, told this newspaper that regardless of the law, the decision on whether or not Hasina will be extradited will ultimately be a “political call”.
“The question to be answered is how strong are economic linkages between India and Bangladesh are, which will ensure that Hasina does not hang like an albatross by the neck of bilateral ties for the bigger interests of both countries,” the career diplomat said.
Professor Sreeradha Dutta, a professor of international affairs at the OP Jindal Global University in India who has a long track record of research on Bangladeshi democracy, said that extradition will neither be an easy nor a quick process.
“Bangladesh can request extradition, but I believe it will become a long-drawn judicial process. Even if Bangladesh revokes her passport, that might have no implication for India. India will question the decision and its legitimacy,” said Professor Dutta.
“Since a government politically opposed to Sheikh Hasina is the one prosecuting her, it might be perceived that she is fleeing political persecution and a threat to life. We have a history of looking after our friends,” she added.
Another Indian diplomat who had worked in Dhaka in the 1990s said the dilemma for India is that while it needs to maintain ties with whoever holds the reins of power in Bangladesh, at the same time it should not be seen as abandoning a long-standing friend like Hasina.
There are enough linkages between the economies of Bangladesh and India to guard against any tectonic shift in the relations between the two countries, he added.
Foreign Affairs Adviser Mohammad Touhid, in an interview with Reuters on August 16, said if the country’s home and law ministries decide, “we have to ask for her … return to Bangladesh”.
Responding to a question about the status of Hasina’s stay in India, India’s External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson, Randhir Jaiswal, told a media briefing on August 16 that her entry into India was granted on short notice.
“Extradition and other such issues are consular matters that are discussed regularly at the consular level. I will update you on any new developments regarding this matter,” he said.
INDIA’S HISTORY OF GRANTING ASYLUM
Sheikh Hasina had previously sought and obtained political asylum from India in 1975 after the assassination of her father Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on August 15. Hasina and Rehana escaped the bloodshed as they were in then-West Germany.
Before being granted political asylum, they had taken refuge in the home of Bangladesh’s ambassador to West Germany. Hasina returned to Dhaka on May 17, 1981, from India.
India is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol.
But India has given shelter to many Pakistani refugees since 1947, while a huge number of refugees from Tibet came to India when Dalai Lama and his followers were being persecuted by Chinese authorities in 1959.
Many Bangladeshi refugees settled in Kolkata during the Liberation War in 1971, while many Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka settled in Tamil Nadu in 1980.
In 2022, Rohingya refugees from Myanmar fled to India, and India has been providing shelter to many, although without any strategy for refugees.
According to BBC Bangla reports, in 1975, Krishak Sramik Janata League President Abdul Kader Siddique took political shelter in India, while in 1959 the Indian government provided asylum to Dalai Lama and his followers.
Mohammad Najibullah Ahmadzai, former president of Afghanistan, had to resign in 1992 and sought asylum in India, which was promptly granted.
In 2013, former Maldivian president Mohamed Nasheed was granted political refuge in the Indian High Commission in Male, while the former king of Nepal, Maharaja Tribhuvan Bir Bikram Shah, along with his family members, took refuge status in India in 1950.
HASINA’S EXIT NOT ONE-OFF
Before thousands of people stormed her official residence, Hasina was flown to Hindon Airbase in Ghaziabad by a military aircraft on August 5.
At the time, she was no longer the prime minister of Bangladesh, as per the statements of Army Chief General Waker Uz Zaman, who announced to the nation that Hasina had resigned prior to her departure.
After landing at Hindon airbase, Hasina was transported to a safe house of paramilitary provided by the Indian government in Noida, Uttarakhand province, at an unspecified date, according to sources.
The nature of Hasina’s departure was not unique; other heads of state have recently set similar precedents in neighbouring countries.
The events that transpired in Bangladesh on August 5 bore striking similarities to those that occurred in Sri Lanka in July 2022 when former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa and prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa were ousted following a mass movement.
After his fall, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, his wife, and two bodyguards fled to the Maldives by a military jet, and then he reportedly flew to Singapore.
The former Thailand prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra was ousted by a military coup in 2006 and exiled to Dubai for 15 years, dodging an eight-year prison sentence for corruption and abuse of power.
He returned to Bangkok for the first time in 15 years in August 2023 and was taken into custody and sentenced by the Supreme Court to eight years in prison. His eight-year sentence was later commuted to a year by King Maha Vajiralongkorn in September last year. Thaksin Shinawatra received a royal pardon last week after his daughter, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, 37, was elected as Thailand’s prime minister.