How India can refuse Sheikh Hasina’s extradition to Bangladesh – Firstpost
Bangladesh has been in the grip of extreme anti-India sentiment ever since former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fled the country and flew to an Indian Air Force base onboard a military aircraft in the wake of the mass uprising against her Awami League government on August 5. Bangladesh’s interim government, led by Muhammad Yunus, has repeatedly labelled India’s concerns over the treatment of minorities in Bangladesh, including Hindus, as “interference in Bangladesh’s internal matters”.
The interim foreign secretary, Md Jashim Uddin, recently said that Bangladesh did not make any comments on the internal matters of other countries and expected India to do the same. He was speaking at a press briefing after the Foreign Office consultation with his Indian counterpart Vikram Misri in Dhaka.
Bangladesh has launched a diplomatic offensive against India as its interim government has been levelling wild and unsubstantiated allegations against the Indian government over the past couple of months. These allegations include claims about the Indian media allegedly circulating ‘fake news’ about the atrocities inflicted on Hindus in Bangladesh in connivance with the Indian government and the government of India plotting to undo the regime change in Bangladesh.
Sheikh Hasina’s rival political parties are adding fuel to the fire by further stepping up the anti-India rhetoric. Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi recently condemned New Delhi for its alleged interference in Bangladesh’s internal matters and for sheltering ousted PM Sheikh Hasina. The comments were made at a rally in Dhaka organised by various BNP-affiliated bodies who marched all the way to Akhaura, a border town near Agartala. The protestors demanded action against what they called “India’s involvement” in the recent attack on the Bangladesh consulate in Agartala and the alleged desecration of the Bangladeshi flag in the Indian city.
The Yunus government is an interim one and doesn’t enjoy a people’s mandate or democratic legitimacy. Even as the interim government has announced that they plan to hold elections by late 2025 or early 2026, there is a simmering discontent amongst various political parties of Bangladesh, who want elections to be held earlier. Irrespective of when the elections will be held, the interim government is leaving no stone unturned to ensure that former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and most leaders of her party, Awami League, are barred from contesting elections.
In such a hostile scheme of things, Bangladesh has now formally asked India to extradite former PM Sheikh Hasina. A day after sending a verbal note to the Indian government regarding the extradition, the Muhammad Yunus-led interim government said that if no response is received within “natural time”, it will serve a note of urgency. India’s Ministry of External Affairs, in the meantime, has confirmed receiving the note verbale from the Bangladesh High Commission, but it has refused to comment on the matter.
India and Bangladesh signed an extradition treaty in 2013, which was amended in 2016, under which such requests can be legally processed. The treaty was signed between the Sheikh Hasina government of Bangladesh and India’s Modi government mainly to address the issue of fugitives operating across borders. Thus, the need for such a treaty was felt against the backdrop of the alarming situation of Indian insurgents, especially from the North-East, hiding in Bangladesh and Bangladeshi militants from radical outfits hiding in Assam and West Bengal.
The treaty was subsequently amended in 2016 to speed up and simplify the extradition process. The amendments go in favour of the Yunus regime seeking Hasina’s extradition, as the country seeking the extradition is no longer required to provide evidence of the offence committed. A mere arrest warrant from a competent court would suffice, as per the amendments. According to Bangladeshi media reports, Sheikh Hasina is accused in over 100 cases and faces multiple charges, including mass killings, murders, abductions, genocide, and crimes against humanity.
However, India is not bound by the treaty to extradite Hasina, as there are a number of provisions based on which India could refuse. One of the grounds on which extradition can be refused is the offence being of a political character. However, this category is not a very strong ground for India to refuse extradition, as there are multiple exemptions to the “political offence” category—murder, manslaughter or culpable homicide, kidnapping, abduction, etc. Since Sheikh Hasina is charged with most of these offences, it would be difficult for the Indian government to refuse the extradition on those grounds.
As per another provision, the extradition may also be refused if they satisfy the requested state that it would be unjust to extradite them. There are many reasons given for the grounds on which the extradition can be deemed unjust, such as if the accusation against the party whose extradition is being sought has not been made in good faith in the interest of justice. This provision for refusing extradition is quite subjective and open-ended, and thus, legally speaking, it’s not very difficult for India to refuse Hasina’s extradition on these grounds.
The provisions of the treaty, apart, the Yunus regime is an unelected interim government. So on what basis can an unelected regime seek the extradition of a former prime minister (who was democratically elected) and is also the leader of a major political party? This is yet another pertinent question. India could always argue that it’d rather wait till free and fair elections are held in Bangladesh and a democratically elected government starts running the country.
Moreover, when Muhammad Yunus spoke at the Clinton Global Initiative on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in September 2024, he openly acknowledged that the so-called revolution wasn’t a spontaneous outburst but a meticulously planned and orchestrated exercise. Thus, he admitted that there was manoeuvring and conspiracy involved in the ouster of Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh’s former Prime Minister.
Thus, an unelected government that openly acknowledged orchestrating a movement to manoeuvre regime change in Bangladesh, seeking the extradition of a democratically elected former prime minister, who was forced to flee the country to save her life and seek asylum in neighbouring India, doesn’t seem to stand on convincing grounds. Moreover, attacks on minorities continue unabated in Bangladesh. In the latest incident, 17 houses of the Christian community in the country were torched on Christmas Eve. As various Hindu advocacy groups and organisations, including the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), urge the Modi government to raise the issue of Bangladeshi Hindus in the UN, it seems only a matter of time before the human rights violations perpetrated covertly or overtly by the Yunus regime get some sort of official international condemnation.
With Donald Trump all set to officially take over as the 47th President of the US on January 20, 2025, it certainly wouldn’t be a smooth ride for the Yunus regime. It’s worthwhile to recall that Trump has highlighted the issue of radical Islamist violence targeting Hindus in Bangladesh. While giving out a Diwali message in early November, Trump stated in a post on Truth Social, “I strongly condemn the barbaric violence against Hindus, Christians, and other minorities who are getting attacked and looted by mobs in Bangladesh, which remains in a total state of chaos”.
Moreover, Sheikh Hasina, the former PM of Bangladesh, has repeatedly accused the US government of orchestrating regime change in Bangladesh. She further claimed that the US government had wanted her to surrender the sovereignty of Saint Martin Island and thus allow the US to have a strategic hold over the Bay of Bengal, and since she refused to oblige, she had to go.
Thus, the upcoming Trump government in the US might not be so keen on putting up with the high-voltage antics of the Yunus regime, leaving aside shielding it from international scrutiny. Although Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ policy means that his administration wouldn’t probably go out of its way to immediately fix the situation in Bangladesh and hold the Yunus regime accountable for ongoing crimes against humanity under its watch. In politics, there is a sea of difference between election rhetoric and what can be possibly achieved on the ground once a government comes to power.
Thus, the change in Bangladesh, after the Trump government takes over, is not going to be sudden or dramatic. It will most probably be a long-winding process marked by chaos and tumult in the region, something in which India has direct stakes and will have to manage the situation extremely tactfully from the point of view of its own internal security.
Will India agree to Bangladesh’s request for Sheikh Hasina’s extradition? Most probably not. Political stability in Bangladesh is crucial for India’s internal security and strategic interests. The extradition of the former PM of Bangladesh would be the final nail in the coffin, sending Bangladesh perpetually into an unending spiral of anti-Hindu and anti-India radical Islamist politics. Thus, India should (and will in all probability) gradually step up pressure on the Yunus regime through international consensus and backdoor diplomacy to conduct free and fair elections in Bangladesh as soon as possible. India should also do its best to ensure that Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League gets fair play in the elections.
It’s not an easy task, considering that the international community hasn’t come out strongly against the situation in Bangladesh. The West has a history of using conflicts and coups in the Global South as a geopolitical tool to further its strategic interests. Thus, from their point of view, it’s best to keep the pot simmering and keep the region on tenterhooks.
But the West now deals with a much more assertive and decisive India. With its own backyard embroiled in multiple crises, the West needs India, an emerging superpower and a leader of the Global South, to boost its own economy and build consensus on major global issues. Thus, with Donald Trump poised to take over the US government, it’s just the right time for India to build a strong international consensus on the Bangladesh issue and draw the attention of the UN to the ongoing atrocities against religious minorities in Bangladesh.
Rati Agnihotri is an independent journalist and writer currently based in Dehradun (Uttarakhand). Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.
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