Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, who is among the senior-most leaders of the BNP, was imprisoned on October 29, 2023, and spent four-and-a-half months in prison until he was freed after Ms. Hasina won the elections. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters
India should extradite former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to Bangladesh, demanded Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, general secretary of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) on Monday (August 26, 2024).
Speaking to The Hindu in an interview at the BNP’s office in the Gulshan neighbourhood in Dhaka, Mr. Alamgir expressed optimism for engaging with India and said his party will protect those Indian investments that are helping the country.
“Frankly speaking, we will seek extradition of Sheikh Hasina as already a large number of cases, including cases of murder, have been filed against her,” Mr. Alamgir said. He elaborated that Ms. Hasina is highly unpopular in Bangladesh at present and therefore India should also take cognisance of the public mood. “In that case, India should help Bangladesh seek accountability from her as she has evidently done great deal of harm to Bangladesh.”
Mr. Alamgir, who is among the senior-most leaders of the BNP, was imprisoned on October 29, 2023 and spent four-and-a-half months in prison and was freed only after Ms. Hasina had won the January elections this year.
Mr. Alamgir’s party has been campaigning for a white paper on the projects and initiatives that were undertaken during the Hasina years, indicating that the BNP would re-evaluate several high-value projects in the energy and infrastructure sectors that Bangladesh had signed with India. “We will definitely protect those agreements with India that have helped Bangladesh, but there are a few agreements, especially the one about electricity trade with Adani that have given rise to tremendous doubt among the people,” said Mr. Alamgir.
Mr. Alamgir also indicated his party’s position on the ambitious Indo-Bangladesh plans that were taken up during Ms. Hasina’s last Prime Ministerial visit to India in June when the two sides proposed to connect Gede crossing of West Bengal to Hasimara-Dalgaon near Indo-Bhutan border through Chilahati-Haldibari in the north Bengal delta region. “There are many connectivity projects that have done great deal of good to us. But we do not think there is any logical explanation for the latest agreement that Sheikh Hasina concluded during her June visit to India,” Mr. Alamgir said.
He said issues like border killings and sharing of water can be dealt with effectively if relationship remains on track. Mr. Alamgir said the BNP had reached out to India on multiple occasions in the past, including ahead of the January 2024 election, but those initiatives did not work out. “India had kept all its fruits in a single basket and that is why our initiatives did not work out then. Now we need to restart relation with India at a fast pace. We always wanted a functional relationship with India.”
“Unfortunately, there has been no direct communication from the Indian side so far,” Mr. Alamgir said.
After the fall of the Awami League government, the BNP has extended support to the Prof. Yunus-led interim government promising cooperation for a “reasonable period of time”. It has also indicated that it is ready to face a fresh election where it is expected to do well. On Sunday (August 25, 2024), interim government Chief Advisor Muhammad Yunus in his nationally telecast speech promised to hold elections after a “political dialogue”. Mr. Alamgir appeared to be disappointed by the speech by Prof. Yunus, as it did not indicate a clear timeline for democratic transition.
“We are optimistic that the interim government will be able to create an election-friendly environment in a short period. However, Mr. Yunus has not stated clearly how much time he would require before calling for an election. We would feel better if he would clarify the timeline that he has in mind,” Mr. Alamgir said indicating a churning within the BNP for holding early election in Bangladesh.
