In a dilemma: On Sheikh Hasina and India-Bangladesh ties

Bangladesh’s former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina now in exile in India, has set off speculation about her imminent return to Dhaka by submitting an application for a new Bangladeshi passport and national identity card this week. The application, made through the Bangladesh High Commission in Delhi, was dismissed by Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s Foreign Affairs Adviser Humayun Kabir, who said that the government in Dhaka would not grant a passport to a “terrorist”, and would seek her return via the extradition agreement as a “prisoner transfer process” with India.

Ms. Hasina has already announced that she plans to return to Bangladesh in December this year, as she did after her previous stay in India in exile from 1975-1981, after the brutal assassination of her father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and nearly every other member of her family.

However, the situation is considerably different now. This time, Ms.