Hasina seeks new passport, identity card: Reuters

Ousted former prime minister Sheikh Hasina has applied for a new Bangladeshi passport and national identity card (NID) allegedly to facilitate her return from India, according to a report by news agency Reuters today (9 November).

Citing a letter dated Monday that it had seen, Reuters said the application marks Hasina’s first formal communication with Bangladeshi authorities since she fled the country in 2024.

The letter was addressed to Preeti Rahman, acting high commissioner at the Bangladesh High Commission in Delhi.

In it, lawyers from Hasina’s London-based law firm Matrix Chambers said they understood that the interim government and other authorities had revoked her existing Bangladeshi passport and NID.

“In the circumstances, we humbly request that necessary steps be taken to issue a new Bangladeshi passport and national identity card for her,” the lawyers wrote.

The letter requested that the applications be processed in the “fastest possible time”, citing Hasina’s Bangladeshi citizenship and the country’s “obligations under international human rights charters”, Reuters reported.

The news agency said neither Preeti Rahman nor spokespersons for Prime Minister Tarique Rahman in Dhaka had immediately responded to requests for comment.

However, on Thursday (5 November), State Minister for Foreign Affairs Humaiun Kobir told reporters that the government would not issue Hasina a passport or travel pass to facilitate her return, saying she would be brought back under the existing extradition treaty between Bangladesh and India.

“Sheikh Hasina is a fugitive, a flagged terrorist, and a terror offender. Is she coming on a visit to her in-laws’ home in Rangpur that a passport has to be given to her, and she will come using that passport? We have an extradition treaty with India. This treaty exists to apprehend terrorists and criminals. It does not take a passport to catch a terrorist criminal; it takes judicial process,” he said.

He added that the government did not consider Hasina, whom he accused of fleeing after killing thousands of people, an ordinary traveller.

“We want her handed over. In accordance with the extradition treaty between the governments of Bangladesh and India, this criminal must be handed over,” he said.

Yesterday (8 November), Law Minister Md Asaduzzaman also said the government would take all necessary legal steps to bring Hasina back under the prisoner exchange treaty.

Speaking after inaugurating a workshop for subordinate court judges, he said the government hoped India would return her under the treaty and that all necessary legal steps had been taken.