International Desk

“It is our call to you that you should hand her over to the government of Bangladesh in a legal way. The people of this country have given the decision for her trial. Let her face that trial,” Bangladesh’s main Opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) said on Tuesday while seeking the extradition of Sheikh Hasina, the deposed prime minister, from India.

This is not the official position of the caretaker government of Bangladesh led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus. But given that the BNP is practically the leading political outfit in Bangladesh after the ouster of Hasina’s Awami League, which won a controversial parliamentary election in January this year, the Yunus government would be under pressure to make a formal request.

Meanwhile, cases have been piling up against Hasina in Bangladesh’s police records and courts ever since she fled the country on August 5 after a conversation with the Army chief who refused to aid her government in quelling the month-long youth agitation that began over a quota-based hiring system for government jobs but snowballed into a call for her ouster from power over a range of issues including corruption.

As Bangladesh’s politics heats up to the demand for Hasina’s extradition from India, does New Delhi have a say in denying or holding back an official request? This question assumes immense significance given Hasina has been a loyal friend of India during her long premiership in Bangladesh, whose friendly outlook towards India holds strategic importance for New Delhi.