DHAKA: A day after protesting to New Delhi against Sheikh Hasina’s continuing exile in India, Bangladesh govt Tuesday promised the former PM “full security” if she returns, while leaving it to the courts to decide her future.
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“Hasina has said she will return home in Dec. When she returns home, she will be given full security and will be made to face judicial process with all kinds of rights — legal and constitutional — ensured. Then, everyone will have to accept the decision that the court gives,” PM’s information and broadcasting adviser Zahed Ur Rahman said.
He said civil and constitutional rights of even those accused of the most serious crimes (during the 2024 uprising against Hasina govt), whether it is Shakib Al Hasan — former Awami League MP and Bangladesh cricketer— or Hasina, will be ensured, even as the adviser dubbed the former cricket star a “rotten man”.
“We do not want to see a mafia regime like Hasina in this country again. We will not allow this to happen in the future, not a fascist mafia regime. This is a democratic state,” Zahed said.
After Hasina’s Aug 5 virtual presser in New Delhi — where she declared she was not scared of being arrested upon her return — Bangladesh foreign ministry had called her a “convicted genocider”, a term foreign minister Khalilur Rahman, Zahed and other govt officials and ministers have refrained from using in news conferences thereafter.
On a visit by a RAW delegation led by its chief Parag Jain to Dhaka, Zahed said it was part of a routine engagement between the two countries, “No Indian agency or institution will be allowed to operate freely in Bangladesh under the current govt as they did during the tenure of Hasina.”
He said Jain’s visit was similar to the recent visit to India by the chief of Bangladesh’s directorate general of forces intelligence. “I see huge speculation, he (RAW chief) came from China. There is nothing to speculate. Our security issues can be there and discussion can be there too,” said the adviser.
