Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and PM Modi.
NEW DELHI (SCMP): India’s erstwhile close relations with Bangladesh are coming under strain as Dhaka pushes for the extradition of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina to face accusations of “atrocities” during her rule.
Hasina fled to India by helicopter on August 5 as student-led protests toppled her 15-year rule marked by widespread accusations of election rigging to maintain her hold on power and human rights violations such as extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances.
On Thursday, Muhammad Yunus, the head of Bangladesh’s interim government, said the country’s people were demanding the return of Hasina to face justice.
“She has to be brought back or else the people of Bangladesh won’t be at peace. The kind of atrocities she has committed, she has to be tried in front of everyone here,” Yunus said in an interview with the Press Trust of India news agency.
He was referring to a statement by Hasina on August 13 that she issued from India in which she demanded “justice” over the recent “terror acts” in Bangladesh, with the former prime minister saying those involved in the killings and vandalism must be punished. Other incidents also has made people angry.
Students and other activists carry Bangladesh's national flag during a protest march organised by Students Against Discrimination to mark one month since former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina stepped down after a mass uprising, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024. - AP
For instance, about three weeks after then Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled the country last month, AHM Shamsuddin Chowdhury Manik, a former Supreme Court judge reportedly paid 15,000 Bangladeshi takas (US$125) to an underground network to help him cross the border illegally into India.
He was spotted and apprehended by Bangladesh border guards and villagers and despite pleading for his captors to release him, was handed over to police, who arrested him on charges of attempted illegal border crossing.
Manik was jailed on August 24, and on the same day, a mob attacked him violently, leaving one of his testicles ruptured and requiring hospital treatment.
“It is easy to understand why people directed their anger at Manik,” Mohammad Ashrafuzzaman of the Capital Punishment Justice Project, which has been documenting rights violations in Bangladesh for more than 15 years, told This Week in Asia.
He added that the Hasina regime had used the judiciary as a repressive tool to punish dissent. “Manik was among those judges who acted as retributive hands that the deposed regime used to deny judicial remedies to the victims who had faced arbitrary incarcerations. Those judges became symbols of injustice in Bangladesh.”
However, Bangladesh’s opposition and activists had alleged previously that police and armed supporters of Hasina’s ruling Awami League party shot many demonstrators, killing hundreds and injuring thousands, during anti-government protests from July to August.
Yunus urged Hasina to stop making political statements that were upsetting Bangladeshis.
"No one is comfortable with her stance there in India because we want her back to try her. She is there in India and at times she is talking, which is problematic,” Yunus said.
“Had she been quiet, we would have forgotten it... But sitting in India, she is speaking and giving instructions. No one likes it.”
FILE- A policeman aims his weapon at protesters during a curfew imposed following violence during protests against Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her government, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Aug. 5, 2024. - AP
The statement from Yunus underscores the supercharged political situation in Bangladesh but New Delhi is unlikely to agree to his demands, analysts say.
“It is very unlikely that India will extradite Hasina,” said Sreeradha Datta, an international affairs professor at Jindal Global University in Haryana. “What has happened is that right now every actor and stakeholder in Bangladesh wants to take an anti-Sheikh Hasina and anti-India stance.”
Last Friday, Delhi was asked about the possibility of Bangladesh’s interim government seeking Hasina’s extradition.
India’s external affairs ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said the matter was in the “realm of hypothetical issues”, according to a report by the Hindustan Times.
“As we stated earlier, the former prime minister of Bangladesh came to India at very short notice for reasons of safety. We have nothing further to add on that matter,” Jaiswal said.
During a parliamentary session last month, India’s political parties unequivocally called for Hasina’s safety and supported the decision to provide her refuge in India.
Delhi has yet to respond to the latest comment by Yunus demanding Hasina’s return to Bangladesh.
Hundreds of leaders and activists affiliated with her party, including police and army officers as well as others accused of supporting Hasina’s regime have gone underground or fled to India and other countries since her downfall.
Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina gestures while speaking to the media, a day after she won the 12th parliamentary elections, in Dhaka on January 8, 2024. - AFP
Among them, Salman F Rahman, a private industry affairs adviser to Hasina, and Anisul Huq, her law minister, were arrested at a river port in Dhaka on August 13 while trying to leave Bangladesh.
Priyajit Debsarkar, a London-based author who has written on Bangladeshi issues, said India has consistently been a safe refuge for leaders from neighbouring countries.
“Sheikh Hasina had on previous occasions stayed in India for her safety and her family’s well-being,” he pointed out.
“It is highly unlikely that the Indian bureaucracy would reverse this hospitality in the short and the medium term,” he added.
Despite tensions over Hasina’s presence in India, the interim leaders of Bangladesh would likely seek to maintain strong bilateral ties as both countries would stand to lose out otherwise, Datta said.
“Historically, relationships have been there and we have grown closer together and we will want to engage because it provides benefits to both nations,” she added.
Under Hasina’s rule, Bangladesh maintained strong political and economic ties with India, particularly in trade.
Two-way trade rose to US$13 billion in the 2023-2024 financial year with India enjoying a trade surplus. Bangladesh’s biggest export to India was ready-made garments, totalling US$391 million during the period.
Tensions between Bangladesh and India were also fuelled by Delhi’s concerns over the safety of the Hindu minority community in Bangladesh in the wake of the protests against Hasina.
“The issue of trying to portray the conditions of minorities in such a big way is just an excuse,” Yunus said in his interview with the Press Trust of India news agency.
Analysts say Delhi’s unsubstantiated accusations could fuel Islamophobia within India and undermine Bangladesh’s interim government.
Relations have also been strained over flooding in the eastern part of Bangladesh last month that Dhaka claimed was caused by the release of water from the Dumbar dam in the northeastern Indian state of Tripura.
In a statement on August 22, India’s external affairs ministry rejected Dhaka’s accusations, saying the flood in Bangladesh was due mainly to waters from large catchment areas flowing downstream of the dam. The dam was located “quite far from the border”, over 120km upstream of Bangladesh, the ministry added. - South China Morning Post
