Dhaka: Former Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina has requested a new passport and national identity card to facilitate her return from exile in India, nearly two years after she was ousted in a mass uprising.
In a letter emailed to Bangladesh's diplomatic mission in New Delhi on Monday, a counsel representing Hasina urged the country's top diplomat to take the necessary steps to issue the documents.
“This is a significant step toward her homecoming. Having had her documents revoked by the previous regime, Her Excellency looks forward to reclaiming her fundamental rights as a Bangladeshi citizen and receiving the necessary documents,” Abu Obaidha Arin, an aide to Hasina, told The Associated Press.
“She is determined to return to Bangladesh by December, and she will undoubtedly return home,” he said.
Hasina told the Associated Press in an interview this month that she would return to Bangladesh in December at any cost.
It was not immediately possible to obtain a comment from the Bangladesh government on the passport request.
The development comes as Bangladesh continues to seek Hasina's extradition from India under a bilateral treaty. New Delhi has declined to hand her over.
On Thursday, Bangladesh's junior minister for foreign affairs, Humaiun Kobir, said Dhaka wanted Hasina to be handed over under the extradition agreement.
“We want Hasina to be handed over. She will be handed over. She is a terrorist. She is a fugitive. There is an active extradition treaty between Bangladesh and India,” he told reporters in Dhaka.
Bangladesh's military sent Hasina to India after student-led protests forced her from power on August 5, 2024. A special tribunal in 2025 sentenced her to death for crimes against humanity, ruling that she was responsible for ordering the crackdown, which left hundreds of people dead and thousands injured.
The United Nations has said nearly 1,400 people were killed during the unrest.
Hasina has denied any wrongdoing, rejected the tribunal's verdict and challenged the legitimacy of the trial.
An interim government led Bangladesh after Hasina's ouster and held an election in February, which her Awami League party was barred from contesting.
Tarique Rahman, the son of a longtime political rival of Hasina, came to power in a landslide.