Sheikh Hasina to be sent straight to jail upon return to Bangladesh, BNP and Jamat on the same page on the issue

By Our Correspondent

Agartala, July 14, 2026

As anticipated well in advance, the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) is preparing to consign exiled prime minister Sheikh Hasina to jail right from the airport after she lands there. The recent announcement by Sheikh Hasina to the international news agency Reuters that she will return to Bangladesh in December this year regardless of consequences has added a new dimension to turbulent Bangladesh politics and put fears of massive unrest across the nation in the minds of the current dispensation. The banned Awami League of which Sheikh Hasina is the supreme leaders is also preparing a countrywide stir to press for revocation of death sentence pronounced on her by the so-called International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) in November last year on the cooked up charge of ‘crimes against humanity’. She had been ousted on August 5 2024 by a countrywide mass uprising organised by fundamentalist elements and financed by the American deep state and ever since she has been living in India after reaching the country by a helicopter on that very date.

Responding to reports on Sheikh Hasina’s planned return to Bangladesh in December this year Shama Obaed Islam, minister of state for external affairs in Bangladesh, said today that whenever she returns to Bangladesh Hasina will be taken straight to jail as per judicial order pronounced by the ICT last year.

“If she surrenders, steps will be taken in accordance with the existing law. She will have to go to jail. The law will take its own course,” Shama Obaed Islam was quoted as saying by the media persons in touch with this portal. Shama said that the government would proceed strictly in accordance with the existing legal framework if Hasina surrenders.

Last week, sources close to Hasina said she is preparing to return to Dhaka by December. It is a completely voluntary decision, they added. “Wherever Sheikh Hasina surrenders, whether in India or Bangladesh, she will have to go to jail first. The government has nothing to consider regarding the statements of a convicted individual,” Shama told reporters.

She said that Hasina has already been convicted and, therefore, the government has nothing to consider regarding the statements of a convicted person.In November last, Hasina was sentenced to death in absentia by a special tribunal in Dhaka for alleged “crimes against humanity” over her government’s brutal crackdown on student-led protests in 2024.

But sources from Bangladesh said that putting Sheikh Hasina may be easy for the government but keeping her confined there indefinitely will be extremely difficult because she still commands large following in the country and her party Awami League is still the largest political outfit despite the ban put on it by the interim government. Once Hasina returns to Bangladesh there will be a fresh bout of turmoil across the country, sources added.

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