Sheikh Hasina seeks new Bangladesh passport; Dhaka rejects it, cites extradition treaty

The letter was sent by email from Matrix Chambers, a London law firm acting for Ms Hasina. It was addressed to Preeti Rahman, the acting high commissioner in Delhi. The lawyers said they understood that the interim government and other authorities had revoked her existing passport and national identity card. They asked for new ones to be issued in the "fastest possible time", citing her Bangladeshi citizenship and the country's obligations under international human rights charters. According to reports, Ms Hasina has confirmed that her lawyers sent it, and she has said she intends to return in December.

The High Commission forwarded the email to the Foreign Ministry in Dhaka for a decision. A diplomatic source in Delhi said the email carried no document showing that Ms Hasina had authorised her lawyers to apply for her. An application made on someone's behalf normally needs the person's own written authority.

Dhaka's response: a review, a rejection and a treaty route

The government's line has two parts. The first is procedural. Home Minister Salahuddin Ahmed told a press briefing at the Home Ministry on 9 November that he had heard of the matter but had "not yet been able to verify whether this is true". The Foreign and Law ministries will first look at the legal provisions, including whether the applications were properly submitted and whether she is entitled to apply, before taking any action. The new Foreign Secretary, Salahuddin Noman Chowdhury, declined to comment on the application at his first press briefing.

The second part is political. Mr Kobir said Bangladesh does not give passports to criminals, and that "there is no scope for staging a drama of returning back with a new passport". His route for her return is the extradition treaty: he said she should ask the Indian government to hand her over, then return, appear before a court and serve her sentence. He described her as someone who fled after killing more than 1,500 people, which is his accusation and not a finding quoted from a court in the reports. Mr Asaduzzaman said on 8 November that the government would take legal steps to bring her back under the treaty and hoped India would return her. The government describes her as convicted, and Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal convicted her in her absence in November 2025.

The prime minister's office and the acting high commissioner had not responded to requests for comment on the letter.

Where India fits in

The request lands in India twice over. It was sent to a Bangladeshi mission on Indian soil, and Ms Hasina is living in India while Dhaka's extradition request sits with the Indian government. Bangladesh and India signed their extradition treaty in 2013, and it provides that a request for extradition under it is to be made through the diplomatic channel. Dhaka's foreign ministry sent a note asking for Ms Hasina's extradition through its Delhi mission on 23 December 2024. India's Ministry of External Affairs confirmed that it had received the note but declined to comment further. Later notes have followed.

The most recent comment the ministry has given, through its spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal, is that the request is being examined as part of judicial and internal legal processes, and that India will continue to engage constructively with all stakeholders. The ministry has not said anything about a passport application, and nothing in the reports read for this article records an Indian reaction.

For now the open questions are narrow. Dhaka has not said whether it will formally reject the application, or whether it will treat the missing authorisation as grounds to ignore it. India has not said whether it will respond to the extradition request, and Ms Hasina's side has not said what it will do if the passport is refused. The Foreign Ministry's decision, and any statement from the Foreign and Law ministries after their review, are the next things to watch.

This report is for information only.