A Passport as a Political Weapon: Hasina’s Paper Trail to a December Return
Sometimes the most dramatic move in politics is an administrative form. On Monday lawyers for Bangladesh’s ousted prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, wrote to the Bangladesh High Commission in New Delhi asking for a new passport and national identity card. According to reports, the letter, sent by the London firm Matrix Chambers, is her first formal communication with Bangladeshi authorities since she fled to India in August 2024.
The logic is simple. Her earlier documents were reportedly cancelled soon after she left power, so she holds no valid Bangladeshi passport. Hasina has said she will return in December “at any cost”; her lawyers now argue that her citizenship and Bangladesh’s obligations under human-rights treaties entitle her to papers, and they ask for the request to be processed in the fastest possible time.
Dhaka’s answer, delivered in advance, is no. A state minister for foreign affairs said last Thursday that the government would not issue a passport or travel document to help her return and described her as a fugitive and terror offender. The law minister added on Sunday that all legal steps were being taken to bring her back under the extradition arrangement with India. The foreign secretary declined to comment on Monday, saying the briefing was about Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s trip to the COP31 climate talks in Türkiye.
Why file at all if refusal is expected? Because the request shifts the story. If the paperwork is rejected, Hasina’s camp can say it tried the lawful route and was blocked; if it is ignored, the silence becomes part of the argument. For Dhaka, any answer risks looking like engagement with someone it wants in a courtroom, not at an immigration desk.
The decision that matters most may lie in New Delhi, which has hosted Hasina for more than two years and has not acted on Dhaka’s extradition requests. A passport would not change that equation, but it would make her announced December return feel less like rhetoric and more like a scheduled event. Watch the High Commission’s reply — or its silence.