Sheikh Hasina’s son said she will return to Bangladesh from India.
Dhaka:
A Bangladeshi student leader who played a key role in overthrowing Sheikh Hasina and is now part of an interim government said she will face trial if she returns home as planned due to the killings during her tenure, including during recent protests, which led her to resign and flee. Monday.
About 300 people, including many university and college students, were killed during the demonstrations that began in July, with students demonstrating against quotas on government jobs before turning into violent protests to oust Hasina, who had led Bangladesh for 20 of the past 30 years ruled.
Hasina’s son Sajeeb Wazed Joy has said she will return to Bangladesh from India, where she is sheltering, as soon as elections are announced in her home country. The main opposition is demanding that these take place within three months.
“I am curious why she fled the country,” student leader Nahid Islam, who is a de facto minister in the transitional government, told Reuters late on Friday in his first interview since joining the government as an adviser on Thursday.
“We will seek justice for all the murders that took place under her, which has been one of the main demands of our revolution. Even if she doesn’t come back, we will work towards that.”
“We want to arrest her – whether or not we can do that through the regular legal system or a special tribunal on the matter, we are discussing how to proceed in this case,” said 26-year-old Islam, who now heads the post -, telecommunications and information department. ministries of technology.
Joy, who lives in the United States, did not respond to a request for comment. Hasina, who is under the protection of the Indian government, could not be contacted.
Another student leader, Abu Baker Mojumder, told Reuters separately that they want Hasina to return and stand trial.
Islam said one of the transitional government’s main priorities was to hold free and fair elections, after the last elections were boycotted by the opposition, and also to investigate suspected corruption in the previous government.
Islam said Bangladesh would need electoral and constitutional reforms before any election, so it was not clear when the next vote would take place. He declined to give a specific timeline.
“My ambition for what I become later depends on the people of Bangladesh,” he said when asked if he would like to become prime minister one day.
He said India had maintained a relationship with Hasina’s Awami League party, but not with the people of Bangladesh as a whole.
“We want friendly ties with India,” he said. “India also needs to look at its foreign policy, otherwise it will become a problem for the whole of South Asia.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)