Ankara, 23 Dec. 2024 (Anadolu News)

Bangladesh on Monday asked India to facilitate the return of ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to Dhaka, the South Asian nation's top diplomat said.

"We sent a note verbal (diplomatic message) to the Indian government saying that the Bangladesh government wants her (Hasina) back here for the judicial process," Bangladesh's Foreign Adviser Touhid Hossain told reporters in Dhaka.

Hasina, 77, fled to India on Aug. 5 following a popular uprising against the alleged atrocities and oppression during her 15-year rule. More than 700 people, mostly youth, were killed during the student-led uprising, which led to the formation of a transitional government.

Sources in the Indian government confirmed it had received the note verbale "in connection with an extradition request” from Bangladesh High Commission in New Delhi on Monday.

"At this time, we have no comment to offer on this matter," Indian government sources told Anadolu. Back home in Dhaka, Hasina is facing many cases, including alleged genocide and crimes against humanity.

An extradition treaty between Dhaka and New Delhi already exists, according to Home Affairs Adviser Lt. Gen. (retired) Jahangir Alam Chowdhury. "We have a prisoner exchange agreement with India. It will be carried out under that agreement," Chowdhury told reporters in Dhaka.

Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus leads the transitional government since Aug. 08.

New Delhi had said Hasina was in India "for the moment." Bilateral relations between the two South Asian neighbors have spiraled down with Dhaka accusing Indian media of running "propaganda" against Bangladesh.

After Indian media started giving space to Hasina's alleged statements, Yunus had told New Delhi to keep the former prime minister silent. In a turn of events since August, India sent its first high-level delegation to Bangladesh early this month.

Yunus had told Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri that Hasina's stay in India "creates tensions." Dhaka has expressed its displeasure over the killings of Bangladeshi nationals by Indian forces along the border. India justifies these actions by labeling the victims as smugglers, but Dhaka has urged New Delhi to take “visible and effective” measures to end the violence.

The two nations share a 4,096-kilometer (2,545-mile) land border, one of the longest in the world. Separately, to pave the way for the first general elections in the post-Hasina era, transitional government head Yunus has requested time until 2026 to implement necessary reforms in government institutions.

The interim government, along with the student movement behind the uprising, claimed that Hasina's 15-year rule had eroded all democratic institutions. They argued that implementing reforms was essential to ensure a free and fair election.

India, in 1971, sent its military forces and Indian-trained Bangladeshi youths under the Mukti Bahani (Freedom Fighters) to then East Pakistan, where they carried out aggressive propaganda and slauhtered hundreds of thousands of non-Bengali speakers, including industrialists, businessmen, and Pakistani government officials stationed in the Eastern region of the country.

Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, in collaboration with Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, a politician from West Pakistan, facilitated the installation of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the father of Sheikh Hasina, as the first head of state of Bangladesh. However, on August 15, 1975, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was assassinated in a military coup at his residence, along with most of his family members.

Following a successful student movement in Bangladesh in August 2024, which opposed the 15-year-long rule of Sheikh Hasina, she sought refuge in India, her political mentors.