Sheikh Hasina Asks for a Passport to Return to Bangladesh, and Dhaka Demands Extradition, Explained

Former Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina took her clearest procedural step yet toward a return she has been promising for December. On Monday, 9 November 2026, lawyers in London emailed the Bangladesh High Commission in New Delhi and asked for a new passport and a new national identity card.

Dhaka's answer, the same day, was that a passport is not on offer. The government wants India to hand her over under the extradition treaty, so that a death sentence passed in her absence can be carried out through a court, not a homecoming she arranges herself. The High Commission, for its part, told The Indian Express it cannot yet treat the email as an application she authorised.

The 60-second version

• The request: Matrix Chambers wrote to acting high commissioner Preeti Rahman on Monday for a new passport and national identity card. Hindustan Times said Hasina, 79, confirmed the letter.
• The dispute: High Commission spokesperson Saidur Rahman told The Indian Express that Hasina "has not applied", because the email had no authorisation from her. The mission forwarded it to Dhaka.
• The sentence: A war-crimes court sentenced her to death in November 2025, in her absence, over the 2024 crackdown. She denies the charges. She has lived in India since she fled on 5 August 2024.
• Dhaka's reply: State minister Humaiun Kobir said Bangladesh does not issue passports to terrorists and that she should ask India to hand her over. Home minister Salahuddin Ahmed said the application was still being checked.
• India: The standing line is that the extradition request is being examined. Hindustan Times reported no immediate word from the external affairs ministry on Monday's letter.

What the letter asked for

The letter, as quoted by Hindustan Times, The Indian Express and a Reuters copy carried by Prothom Alo, was sent by Hasina's lawyers at Matrix Chambers in London to Preeti Rahman, the acting high commissioner at the Bangladeshi mission in New Delhi.

The operative sentence, with small differences in how each paper shortened it, said that in view of the reported revocation of her existing Bangladeshi passport and national identity card by the interim government and other authorities, the lawyers requested a new passport and a new identity card. They asked for the papers to be processed expeditiously, on the basis of her Bangladeshi nationality and of obligations under the laws of Bangladesh and under international human rights instruments.

Hindustan Times, in a report by Rezaul H. Laskar updated at 4:57 pm IST on 9 November, said Hasina confirmed the approach and shared a copy of the letter emailed that day. The paper called it the clearest step so far toward the December return she has described in interviews, including with HT. Prothom Alo's Reuters copy said the letter was the first such communication since she fled in 2024, and that Reuters had seen it. The same copy said Rahman, and spokespeople for Prime Minister Tarique Rahman in Dhaka, did not immediately respond to Reuters.

The Indian Express then published a direct answer from the mission. Spokesperson Saidur Rahman told the paper on Monday: "Former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who was ousted following the student-people uprising, has not applied for a new passport or National Identity Card (NID)." The mission had received an email from a law firm, he said, but "we are not sure whether the request is genuine." There was no authorisation letter or other document showing that Hasina had authorised the firm. "However, we have forwarded the email to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for necessary consideration."

The Daily Star also reported that the mission forwarded the email. Those two facts can sit together. A letter exists, HT says Hasina confirmed it, and the mission says it cannot verify that she authorised it. Until Dhaka decides which of those is the file it will act on, "Hasina has applied" and "Hasina has not applied" are both sentences officials have used.

Prothom Alo quoted home minister Salahuddin Ahmed at a briefing the same morning, before that dispute had fully surfaced in his remarks. "I have also heard about the matter. Fugitive convict Sheikh Hasina has reportedly applied for a passport and an NID. However, I have not yet been able to verify whether this is true. The ministries of foreign affairs and law are looking into the matter." He said those ministries would look at the legal basis, at whether an application was properly submitted, and at whether she is entitled to apply, before either ministry took a step.

A Reuters report published by Dawn said Ahmed described her as a convicted offender who had taken refuge abroad, and that he confirmed a letter had already gone to India seeking extradition "through due process."

What Dhaka said in the afternoon

Humaiun Kobir, state minister for foreign affairs, rejected a passport in public remarks at the foreign ministry.

The Daily Star quoted him: "Bangladesh does not issue passports to terrorists. We have asked for them (terrorists) to be handed over." He called the application "utterly ridiculous" and criticised Matrix Chambers for taking her as a client. "Their client is someone who fled Bangladesh after killing more than 1,500 people," the paper quoted him. He said an ordinary passport application does not apply to a fugitive, and that she can return by the extradition route, surrender to a court and serve the sentence. On the mechanics, he said some countries hand fugitives over in handcuffs and put them on a plane, while others send them under surveillance.

Hindustan Times carried a harder formulation of the same briefing. Kobir described her as a "killer and terrorist" who fled after allegedly killing more than 2,000 people, and said: "There is a process for her return, the extradition treaty between India and Bangladesh. She can ask India to hand her over through the extradition treaty." He added: "Let her come back, surrender before the court and serve her sentence." The paper said he noted a death sentence in one case and many other cases still pending, and that he called the application weak "from a legal, ethical and moral point of view." "Bangladesh does not give passports to terrorists. It asks for them to be handed over."

The Indian Express quoted a third version, via the state-run BSS news agency as well as his reporters: "She has been sentenced to death. Bangladesh does not issue passports to terrorists." And: "We have an active extradition treaty with India. You do not need a passport to bring back terrorists and criminals. This is a matter of handover, and a judicial process is already in place." If she genuinely wants to return, he said, she should ask the Indian government to hand her over.

The death toll in his remarks is not stable across these reports: more than 1,500 in The Daily Star, more than 2,000 in Hindustan Times. Both are his characterisation, as each paper recorded it. Neither is the UN figure, which is below.

A Reuters account published by Dawn quoted him this way: "Let her tell India: 'Yes, there is an extradition treaty. Please hand me over. I killed this many people, and I am ready to face the sentence. Please execute me there.'" He also called her "a thief, a bandit and a terrorist who fled." That story identified Md Aminul Islam, chief prosecutor of the court that sentenced her, as dismissing the passport application as "nothing but a political stunt."

The Awami League's own line on Monday, reported by The Indian Express, was that Hasina has stated her intention to return in December and face the proceedings, and that the passport and identity-card applications are an "important step towards fulfilling that stated intention after more than two years in India."

How she got here

Hasina fled to India on 5 August 2024, Prothom Alo reported, as a student and public uprising brought down her government. Hindustan Times said she has lived in India since that uprising. A Dawn dispatch described the end of her 15-year rule, which the uprising she had tried to crush brought to a close. The Reuters copy in Prothom Alo said she had been prime minister for 20 years across multiple terms. The two spans are different cuts of the same career: the last continuous stretch, and the years in office added together. This piece does not collapse them.

She has not been seen in public since she left, Dawn reported, though she has joined online news conferences by telephone. On 5 August 2026, the second anniversary of the government's collapse, she made her wish to return public, The Indian Express reported. The paper described Monday's letter as coming three months after that.

In November 2025 a Bangladeshi war-crimes court sentenced her to death in her absence. Hindustan Times identified the court as the International Crimes Tribunal and the charge as crimes against humanity, on the finding that she was responsible for ordering the crackdown. The paper said that crackdown left hundreds dead and thousands injured, and that a UN report put the toll at nearly 1,400. She denies wrongdoing, has rejected the verdict, and has challenged the legitimacy of the trial, HT reported. The Reuters copy said she has denied the charges from exile.

She has told Reuters she plans to return in order to surrender before a court. Aides said on Monday that a date would be announced once the formalities were done, that copy reported. She told AFP, in an email quoted by Dawn, that she was "fully aware" she faced being hanged.

Her Awami League, which the Reuters copy called the country's largest party before the ban that followed her fall, is barred from politics. Many colleagues are in jail or in self-imposed exile in India or elsewhere, that report said. Dawn said Prime Minister Tarique Rahman's party won the elections in February, in a contest the Awami League was barred from fighting, and that his government has said Hasina would get due process in every case against her if she came back.

The same government is also dealing with garment workers' wage protests, a separate dispute: Bangladesh garment workers' wage protests.

Extradition, and what India has said

Bangladesh's demand is not new, and Monday's letter did not create it.

Ahmed said the government had already written, through the foreign ministry, to the country where she has taken shelter, asking for her return under the extradition treaty so that a convicted person can be brought back under the law. Hindustan Times said Dhaka has treated her extradition as necessary if the two countries are to build a better working relationship. The Indian side's repeated reply, the paper said, is that the request is being examined in line with legal and judicial processes. The Indian Express put the same reply in the government's earlier words: the request is "being examined."

Dawn's dispatch said her continued presence in India has strained ties, and that New Delhi says the extradition request is under legal review. The Reuters copy in Prothom Alo said ties deteriorated sharply after India gave her refuge, and that a return could cut two ways: it could sharpen the political split at home, or it could ease the strain with India. That is the wire's framing of the risk, not a decision either capital has announced.

On the passport letter itself, Hindustan Times said there was no immediate word from India's external affairs ministry.

People familiar with the matter, whom HT did not name, said the passport request was meant to separate a return she chooses from an extradition she does not, and that the idea had been in preparation for some time. One of them told the paper that a passport changes the manner of arrival. "If you have a passport, you can choose to enter via a land border crossing. If it's an airport, the aircraft and the facility can be secured and the person taken away quickly. It will be much tougher to do that at a land border crossing." That is an unnamed person's reading of the tactics. It is not an Indian or Bangladeshi government statement, and it is not a published travel plan. The letter Reuters saw, Dawn noted, did not say when or where she intended to travel.

Kobir's point, across the briefs, is the opposite tactic: a fugitive under a death sentence does not travel home on a fresh passport. She is handed over, or she is not.

The security backdrop Dhaka is citing

The passport row landed in a week Dhaka is already describing as unstable.

Dawn reported that police on Monday said they had arrested 12 people over a series of petrol-bomb attacks this month, including attacks on property, an empty bus and police vehicles, with no casualties. Dhaka police spokesman Md Akhtar Hossain said the suspects were members of the banned Awami League and were "trying to create panic among people." That is a police allegation. The story did not report a court finding.

Asked about crude-bomb blasts, Ahmed told Prothom Alo: "The fallen forces occasionally attack some buses and establishments in an attempt to create instability in the country. The police are taking legal action and thwarting such attempts." "Fallen forces" is his label. He did not, in that quote, set out evidence tying those blasts to the passport letter. The two were answers at the same briefing.

What to watch next

1. Whether Dhaka treats the email as Hasina's application. The foreign and law ministries are checking authenticity, process and whether a convicted fugitive can apply at all. The High Commission has already said the email lacked an authorisation.
2. Whether a December date is actually announced. She has told Reuters she plans to surrender before a court. Aides said the date follows the formalities. Kobir's offer is a different procedure: ask India to hand her over, then surrender and serve the sentence.
3. India's file. The extradition request remains, on New Delhi's public line, under legal examination. Monday produced no fresh comment from the external affairs ministry, HT reported.
4. The street. Police say 12 people arrested over this month's petrol bombs are Awami League members. Any further violence will be read, by the government, against her promise to come back.

The letter asks a mission in New Delhi for a passport. The government that would have to issue it says the route is an extradition, and India says that request is still being examined. The dispute is over who decides the terms on which Sheikh Hasina crosses the border, and whether she crosses it at all.

---

This explainer is based on Hindustan Times (Rezaul H. Laskar, New Delhi, updated 4:57 pm IST on 9 November 2026) for Hasina's confirmation of the letter, her age of 79, the Matrix Chambers text, Preeti Rahman, the plan to return in December, the August 2024 exile, the International Crimes Tribunal death sentence in 2025, the finding that she was responsible for ordering the crackdown, the description of hundreds dead and thousands injured, the UN figure of nearly 1,400, her denial and her challenge to the tribunal, Humaiun Kobir's "killer and terrorist" remarks and the figure of more than 2,000, the line that many other cases are pending, the absence of an immediate comment from India's external affairs ministry, India's position that the extradition request is being examined, and the unnamed people's comments on a land border. The Indian Express (Shubhajit Roy, updated 2:10 am IST on 10 November 2026) is the source for Saidur Rahman's statement that she had not applied and that the email lacked authorisation, the 5 August 2026 anniversary remarks, Salahuddin Ahmed's comments as carried by BSS, Kobir's lines on the active extradition treaty and on not needing a passport to hand over a fugitive, the earlier Indian statement that the request is "being examined", and the Awami League statement. The Daily Star (9 November 2026) is the source for Kobir's "utterly ridiculous", the figure of more than 1,500, the refusal to issue a passport to "terrorists", the forwarding of the email, and his description of how extradition handovers work. Prothom Alo (9 November 2026) is the source for Ahmed's briefing, including that he had not yet verified the application, and for his remark on "fallen forces". Prothom Alo's Reuters copy (updated 9 November 2026) is the source for the letter Reuters saw, the December plan, the surrender intention, the aides' comment on a date, the November 2025 death sentence in absence, the denial, the 20 years in office across terms, the ban on the Awami League, the lack of an immediate reply from Preeti Rahman and from the prime minister's spokespeople, and the wire's framing of the India relationship. Dawn (AFP and Reuters, 9 November 2026) is the source for the 15-year rule, Ahmed's description of a convicted offender, the extradition letter already sent, Md Aminul Islam's "political stunt" remark, the AFP email in which she said she was "fully aware" she faced being hanged, Kobir's quoted challenge to ask India for execution, the absence of public appearances since 2024, Tarique Rahman's February election victory and the bar on the Awami League, the promise of due process, and the police account of 12 arrests. Kobir's death-toll remarks are his. The police description of the suspects is an allegation. The situation will move if Dhaka rules on the email or if India says something new about extradition.