Ousted Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina seeks new passport to return from India

Hasina has asked Bangladesh's government to issue her a new passport and national identity card, according to a letter cited by Reuters. In it, she requested that the paperwork be processed "expeditiously" on the basis of her Bangladeshi nationality. She has been in India since fleeing Bangladesh two years ago.

The former prime minister told Reuters she intends to surrender before a court in Bangladesh, and her aides said on Monday that the date will be announced once formalities are wrapped up. She has publicly promised to be back in Bangladesh in December.

Returning means walking into a death sentence. Bangladesh's war crimes court condemned Hasina in absentia last November for ordering the deadly crackdown on student protests that swept the country in 2024. As many as 1,400 people may have been killed in those protests, according to United Nations estimates.

Hasina is the daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Bangladesh's founder and first president. She ran the country from 1996 to 2001 and again from 2009 until 2024, making her its longest-ruling prime minister. She was pushed out by a student-led mass movement that erupted after the Supreme Court restored a job quota system favouring descendants of the country's liberation activists.

Her homecoming carries weight in a nation of 127 million people. Hasina still holds support among sections of the population, and her arrival could complicate the government's push to steady the country and its economy after two years of disruption. It could also thaw ties with India, which soured sharply when she fled there in 2024.