India says examining Bangladesh request for Hasina's extradition

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India is examining a request from Bangladesh for the extradition of the country's former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, the Indian foreign ministry spokesperson said on Wednesday.

The request - first made in December and reiterated this month after Hasina was sentenced to death for her role in the killing of student protesters last year - was being examined in India as part of ongoing internal judicial and legal processes, he said.

Hasina fled to India in August 2024 at the height of the protests.

Hasina, 78, has been in hiding in India – her close ally when she was the prime minister of Bangladesh for 15 years, until her autocratic rule was overthrown in a mass uprising in August 2024, in which more than 1,400 people were killed, according to the United Nations.

Earlier, a special International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) in Dhaka convicted Hasina of crimes against humanity and sentenced her to death, fulfilling a key pledge by the interim government, led by Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus.

Following the court ruling, Bangladesh’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that India had an “obligatory responsibility” under a bilateral extradition treaty signed in 2013 to facilitate the former leader’s return.

The ministry said keeping Hasina is a “grave act of unfriendly behaviour”, and called it “a travesty of justice for any other country to grant asylum to these individuals convicted of crimes against humanity”.

India’s past support for Hasina has frayed relations between the two South Asian neighbours since her overthrow.

Bangladesh will hold its first general elections since the protests in February. Hasina’s party, the Awami League, is barred from any political activity.