Last Updated on November 30, 2025 8:00 pm by INDIAN AWAAZ
Zakir Hossain from Dhaka
Bangladesh Foreign Affairs Adviser Mohammad Touhid Hossain on Sunday said Dhaka–Delhi relations will not be hindered by unresolved issues, including the matter of extraditing former PM Sheikh Hasina.
“Whether it is Teesta water or border killings, these will remain alongside the matter of returning Sheikh Hasina. One is not dependent on the other,” he said at a Diplomatic Correspondents Association, Bangladesh (DCAB) talk titled “Bangladesh’s Foreign Policy: Relevant Role in a Changing World”.
“We want them [India] to return her so that the sentence can be executed. But I don’t think everything else will be stuck because of this,” he added. The adviser said there was also no formal communication from India regarding former home minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, sentenced to death over crimes against humanity during last year’s July Uprising. “We all know he is in India, but that has never been communicated to us in writing,” he said. “I have no information that extradition will begin with him.”
On Dhaka’s previous “warm” ties with New Delhi, he said the warmth existed mainly “between the two governments”, not the people. Long-standing frustrations over Teesta and border killings, he said, were never addressed by the Awami League despite 15 years in power. “This outward warmth is not the real matter. The real matter is whether our interests were being secured; clearly they were not.” He added that even if India does not return Hasina, bilateral ties will continue. Bangladesh expects her return as she has been convicted, he said.
On November 17, the Dhaka-based International Crimes Tribunal sentenced Hasina and Kamal to death in a case linked to crimes against humanity during the July Uprising. Former police chief Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun received five years after turning state witness. All were tried in absentia.
India on November 26 confirmed it was examining Bangladesh’s extradition request, with MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal saying it was under “judicial and internal legal processes”.