DHAKA: A Bangladeshi court on Thursday issued an arrest warrant for exiled ex-leader Sheikh Hasina, who fled to India in August after she was toppled from power by a student-led revolution.

Prosecutor Mohammad Tajul Islam called it a “remarkable day”, while a relative of one of the hundreds who died in the uprising against her autocratic rule said they were “looking forward” to the trial.

Hasina’s 15-year tenure saw widespread human rights abuses, including the mass detention and extrajudicial killings of her political opponents.

“The court has... ordered the arrest of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, and to produce her in court on November 18,” Islam, chief prosecutor of Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal (ICT), told reporters.

“Sheikh Hasina was at the helm of those who committed massacres, killings and crimes against humanity in July to August,” Islam said.

The court also issued an arrest warrant for Obaidul Quader, the fugitive former general secretary of Hasina’s Awami League party, as well as 44 others, who were not named.

Dozens of Hasina’s allies were taken into custody after her regime collapsed, accused of culpability in a police crackdown that killed more than 700 people during the unrest that deposed her.

Former cabinet ministers and other senior members of her Awami League party have been arrested, and her government’s appointees were purged from courts and the central bank.

Hasina, however, has not been seen in public since fleeing Bangladesh by helicopter. The 77-year-old’s last official whereabouts are a military airbase near India’s capital New Delhi.

India’s foreign ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal, asked by journalists about the arrest warrant, declined to comment. “She had come at short notice for safety reasons, and she continues to be in India,” he said.

Her presence in India — her government’s biggest benefactor — has infuriated the interim administration in Bangladesh that replaced her.

Dhaka has revoked her diplomatic passport, and the countries have a bilateral extradition treaty which would facilitate her return to face criminal trial.

A clause in the treaty, however, says extradition might be refused if the offence is of a “political character”.

“The court has given one month,” interim foreign minister Touhid Hossain told reporters. “We will try to do everything to bring her back within this time.” Hossain did not say whether Bangladesh would lodge a formal request for Hasina’s extradition with India.

The ICT is a deeply contentious war crimes court Hasina’s government set up in 2010 to probe atrocities during the 1971 independence war from Pakistan.

The United Nations and rights groups criticised its procedural shortcomings, and it became widely seen as a means for Hasina to eliminate political opponents.

Several cases accusing Hasina of orchestrating the “mass murder” of protesters are being probed by the court.

Hasina was replaced by Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus.

Published in Dawn, October 18th, 2024