Dhaka, July 30: Deposed Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina is likely to be arrested instantly on her return from India, before getting opportunities to surrender directly to a court, Law Minister M Asaduzzaman said on Thursday.
His comments came a day after Hasina told a news agency that she was determined to return to her country by December despite fearing for her life.
Earlier this month, there were more interviews of her that suggested she was discussing with her party colleagues her possible return to Bangladesh by the end of this year.
Asaduzzaman said 78-year-old Hasina has the right to return, but the “law will take its own course and we will do nothing violating the law”.
“Despite being a death penalty convict, being a Bangladeshi citizen, if she intends to surrender showing respect to the law by returning home, perhaps she will be arrested before she could do so,” the minister told reporters. “We will exercise the authority that the law has given us”.
Asked how she could return after her passport was revoked by the interim government that succeeded her, Asaduzzaman said: “It is her problem, not mine.”
“(But) whenever she will enter into our territory, I will enforce the authority that the law has reposed upon me,” he said.
Hasina’s government was toppled in August 2024 after violent student-led street protests in Bangladesh, following which she fled to India.
An interim government, which took charge after Hasina’s ouster, disbanded her political party, Awami League, under an executive order under an anti-terror law.
In November 2025, Hasina was sentenced to death, in absentia, after being convicted of crimes against humanity by the International Crimes Tribunal for her role in the violent crackdown on the 2024 student-led protests. Hasina has dismissed charges against her as “politically motivated”.
The tribunal was originally formed in 2010 to try collaborators of Pakistani troops during the 1971 Liberation War. The Yunus regime amended its mandate to try the deposed premier by appointing a chief prosecutor who had appeared as the key defence counsel in the collaborators’ cases.
International human rights watchdogs like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have called the tribunal’s proceedings “flawed”, while the UN human rights office has questioned its fairness.
Earlier this year, elections were held in Bangladesh, following which the Bangladesh Nationalist Party came to power and Tarique Rahman took charge as the prime minister.
Bangladesh has been seeking Hasina’s extradition for a while.
New Delhi has acknowledged the extradition request and maintains that it is under legal consideration. (PTI)
