Overview
- India's high commissioner in Dhaka, Dinesh Trivedi, said on Saturday that Bangladesh's extradition request for Sheikh Hasina is under a legal, court-involving process and that New Delhi cannot give a timeframe for her return.
- Trivedi told a Dhaka think-tank that Hasina's arrival in India on August 5, 2024 was unexpected, that she came on a Bangladesh Air Force aircraft, and that the Indian military did not arrange or carry out the evacuation.
- Bangladesh officials, including State Minister Shama Obaed Islam, say legal procedures alone are not enough and are pressing India for political will to expedite repatriation.
- Hasina was tried in absentia and sentenced to death in 2025, and her public declaration that she plans to return by December 2026 has increased diplomatic pressure and complicated Prime Minister Tarique Rahman's proposed visits to New Delhi.
- The 2013 India-Bangladesh extradition treaty includes a political-offence exception that can bar transfers, a legal detail that helps explain why the case is being treated through slow judicial channels and why the dispute has strained bilateral ties.