BANGLADESH’S Chief Advisor Muhammad Yunus has said that his country will seek extradition of ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina who was toppled from power in a mass uprising in August and fled to India.
The Awami League leader, daughter of Bangladesh’s founding father and former president and prime minister Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was in power since 2009. The opposition had accused her regime of becoming democratic.
The 77-year-old was last seen arriving in neighboring India, a country with which her government had always maintained cordial relations, after fleeing by helicopter as a mob stormed her palace in Dhaka, the national capital, on August 5.
Dhaka has issued Hasina’s arrest warrant
Authorities in Dhaka have already issued an arrest warrant for the veteran leader. She was summoned to appear in a court in the Bangladeshi capital on Monday, November 18, to face charges of “massacres, killings, and crimes against humanity”.
Yunus, an economist and pioneer in microcredit and microfinance who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, had faced in the past the wrath of the Hasina government which had called him “bloodsucker of the poor” even though the microfinance lender that Yunus founded was praised for helping Bangladesh achieve a fast economic growth.
The 84-year-old leader, who is heading a temporary administration, said it was focused on bringing those guilty of cracking down on protests to topple Hasina to justice.
Many of the former ministers of the Hasina government, who were detained, are expected to face similar charges.
On Sunday, November 17, Yunus said they had already taken initiatives to try people who are responsible for forced disappearances and mass killings during the uprising in August and September.
In an address to the nation marking 100 days in power since the uprising led by the students, Yunus said he talked with Karim Khan, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. Referring to the deposed premier, he said they would seek extradition of the “ousted autocrat” from India.
Dhaka to seek Interpol red notice for Hasina loyalists
Earlier in November, Bangladesh said it would seek an Interpol “red notice” alert for fugitive leaders of the previous regime.
Red notices by the Interpol alert law-enforcement agencies globally about fugitives. India is also a member of the police body but such notices do not mean it must hand Hasina over.
According to the Interpol website, “Member countries apply their own laws in deciding whether to arrest a person.”
Meanwhile, pressure was building on the Yunus-led arrangement to restore democratic institutions in the country of around 170 million people, which gained its independence from Pakistan’s clutches in 1971 with the help of India.
The veteran leader requested his countrymen to be patient for the much-awaited election, saying a commission for the same would be formed “within a few days”.
Bangladesh’s last election was held in January this year and Hasina’s League registered a decisive win, something that her critics called sham since the opposition stayed away after the former prime minister refused to hold the polls under a caretaker government.
(With agency inputs)
South Asians Globally
