Ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina requests passport to return and surrender before Bangladesh court

NEW DELHI — Ousted former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has requested a new passport and national identity card, signaling plans to travel back from India to Bangladesh in December to surrender before a court.

Hasina has spent two years living in self-imposed exile in India after fleeing Bangladesh in 2024. Her departure followed a popular, student-led mass protest movement that erupted after the Supreme Court restored a job quota system prioritizing descendants of liberation activists.

According to Reuters, Hasina dispatched a letter to the Bangladeshi government requesting that her documentation be processed expeditiously on the basis of her Bangladeshi nationality. Hasina’s aides stated that the exact date of her return will be announced once administrative formalities are completed.

Hasina stated to Reuters that she intends to surrender before a court in Bangladesh. Last November, Bangladesh’s war crimes court sentenced her in absentia to death for ordering a deadly crackdown on the 2024 student demonstrations. United Nations estimates indicate that as many as 1,400 people may have been killed during those protests.

Sheikh Hasina is the daughter of Bangladesh’s founder and first president, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. She served as prime minister from 1996 to 2001, and again from 2009 until her ouster in 2024.