Bangladesh’s interim government revoked the diplomatic passport of ousted premier Sheikh Hasina on Thursday, after she fled a student-led uprising by helicopter to India earlier this month.
The move to cancel Sheikh Hasina’s documents leaves the former autocratic leader in potential limbo, and comes on the same day that a United Nations team arrived in Dhaka to assess whether to investigate alleged human rights violations.
More than 450 people were killed — many by police fire — during the weeks leading up to Sheikh Hasina’s ouster, as crowds stormed her official residence in Dhaka and ended her iron-fisted 15-year rule.
The interior ministry said in a statement that Sheikh Hasina’s passport and those belonging to former government ministers and ex-lawmakers no longer in their posts “have to be revoked”.
It also poses a diplomatic dilemma for Sheikh Hasina’s current host, regional powerhouse India.
‘Disproportionate force’
Post the revolt and storming of her official residence on August 5, Ms Hasina fled to India
While India is hosting Sheikh Hasina, PM Modi has also offered his support to the new Bangladeshi leader, Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, who is heading the caretaker administration.
“The former prime minister, her advisers, the former cabinet and all members of the dissolved national assembly were eligible for diplomatic passports by virtue of the positions they held,” Dhaka’s home ministry said in a statement.
“If they have been removed or retired from their posts, their and their spouses’ diplomatic passports have to be revoked.”
Dhaka’s new authorities said that Sheikh Hasina, and other former top officials during her tenure, could apply for a standard passport, but that those documents were contingent on approval.
“When the aforementioned people apply afresh for ordinary passports, two security agencies have to clear their application for their passports to be issued,” the ministry added.
Sheikh Hasina’s government was accused of widespread abuses, including the mass detention and extrajudicial killing of political opponents.
The UN rights office asessing the protest response had said in a preliminary report last week that there were “strong indications, warranting further independent investigation, that the security forces used unnecessary and disproportionate force”.
Yunus has said his administration would “provide whatever support” UN investigators need.
Separately, a Bangladeshi war crimes tribunal set up by Sheikh Hasina has launched three “mass murder” probes into its founder over the recent unrest.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
