Amid a Dhaka extradition request, India extends the visa of former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
Sheikh Hasina, the former prime minister of Bangladesh, fled to India during protests, but India has renewed her visa despite Dhaka’s demands for her extradition.
According to persons acquainted with the situation, India has renewed the visa of Sheikh Hasina, the ousted prime minister of Bangladesh who has remained in the country since August of last year, despite mounting calls in Dhaka for her extradition.
In the face of widespread demonstrations, Hasina, 77, resigned and fled to India. Since arriving at Hindon Air Base on August 5, she has been incommunicado; however, it has been reported that she has been relocated to a safe home in Delhi. The Dhaka interim administration, headed by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, requested her extradition on December 23 in an unsigned diplomatic letter or verbal note addressed to the external affairs ministry.
On condition of anonymity, the aforementioned individuals stated that the former premier’s visa was recently renewed to allow her to remain in the nation. They dispelled rumours that Hasina would be given sanctuary by pointing out that India has a particular statute addressing refugees and issues like asylum.
Through the local Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO), the Union Home Ministry, which must approve such affairs, was engaged in the decision to extend the visa, the persons stated without giving specifics.
Bangladesh’s request to extradite Hasina is unlikely to receive a response from the Indian government, according to a January 3 HT article. According to persons acquainted with the situation, Dhaka hasn’t finished the important paperwork required to forward the matter.
Hasina is among the 97 individuals whose passports have been revoked by the Department of Immigration and Passports for their suspected participation in enforced disappearances and deaths during rallies in July, according to a Bangladeshi official in Dhaka on Tuesday night.
Yunus spokesperson Abul Kalam Azad Majumder told a media briefing that the passports of 75 individuals, including Sheikh Hasina, were revoked for their involvement in the July killings, while the passports of 22 individuals involved in enforced disappearances were cancelled by the passports department, according to the state-run BSS news agency.
The most recent events occurred simultaneously with the issuance of a second arrest warrant for Hasina on January 6 by Bangladesh’s International Criminal Tribunal, which was established to try those charged with crimes against humanity and genocide. Hasina and eleven other people were ordered to be arrested by the tribunal and brought before the panel on February 12 by Bangladeshi police officers.
As part of a probe into the 2009 killings of 74 persons by the former Bangladesh Rifles, Maj Gen (retired) ALM Fazlur Rahman, the head of Bangladesh’s National Independent Probe Commission, stated that day that panel members wanted to travel to India to “interrogate” Hasina.
“If the [Bangladesh] government grants us permission, the commission will travel to India and question Sheikh Hasina for the investigation,” Rahman was cited by the BSS news agency.
In New Delhi, some members of Bangladesh’s interim administration are seeing these steps as an attempt to maintain pressure on India to extradite Hasina.
Days after Hasina’s arrival in India, her son Sajeeb Wazed Joy, who lives in the United States, denied rumours that she had applied for asylum in India and that her visa had been canceled. Her visa hasn’t been canceled. Nowhere has she asked for political asylum. He told the ANI news agency on August 9 of last year, “Those are all rumours.”
But since the UK’s immigration rules prohibit anybody from outside the nation from applying for refuge, the government essentially barred any potential asylum plea. Additionally, according to some sources, Hasina’s US visa has been canceled.
In addition to acknowledging receipt of Bangladesh’s request, the external affairs ministry has already stated that Hasina is free to make her own decisions. Regarding Sheikh Hasina, the former prime minister, we don’t have any new information on her ambitions. Randhir Jaiswal, a ministry spokeswoman, told a media conference last year that it is up to her to move things along.
