DHAKA: Former Bangladesh PM and chief of banned Awami League Sheikh Hasina, who was sentenced to death back home, announced Friday she and her party colleagues plan to return to Dhaka “voluntarily” around Dec and surrender.“They may arrest me on my return, they may even kill me,” Sheikh Hasina told new agency Reuters. “Still, I have to go,” the 78-year-old told the news agency, even as sources in the Tarique Rahman-led BNP govt sought to downplay her statements, saying it is her call. Whether she is extradited or returns on her own, she would face trial, they said.This was the second time that Hasina has declared her intent to return from India, where she fled to escape angry mobs that had threatened to kill her amid violent protests against her govt in 2024.Hasina’s return, however, will not be a safe proposition.Want Hasina back so she could be executed: NCP MPThe reiteration Friday seems to mark the assessment that the BNP dispensation represents a change from the stand of the Muhammad Yunus-led interim govt, which made no secret of its hostility towards Hasina, and on whose watch she was sentenced to death after what many consider a sham trial.Her return could also help BNP govt that has been accused by opponents of not trying hard to get Hasina back, as well as remove an irritant in ties with New Delhi, which has been used by pro-Pakistan elements and Islamists to whip up animus towards India.On her intention to return, a former Hasina cabinet member, also in ‘exile’, told TOI, “Public perception has shifted in a major way, and the growing broad consensus, globally and locally, on inclusive politics in Bangladesh is Awami League’s strength.”“Ultimately, our expectation is that the political leadership in Bangladesh now will accept the political reality that everyone expects inclusive politics. Political exclusion is not good for the socio-economic situation and law and order,” he said.Referring to her interviews, including the one published by NDTV on June 29, govt sources said if and when Hasina returns, she will have to face trial in several cases, including those related to crimes against humanity. In one such case, she was sentenced to death.Hasina’s return, however, will not be a safe proposition with an MP of NCP – an ally of hardline Jamaat-e-Islami and a party whose members led the protests against Hasina – vowing to ensure that she was hanged. “We saw an interview. Someone said they are planning to return in Dec. Our demand is that the country has already suffered 16 years of devastation. Now, we also want that person to return, so that the death sentence can be carried out,” NCP’s Nahid Islam, who is opposition’s chief whip in Parliament, said.Hasina and her colleagues, however, may be banking on the support Awami League continues to enjoy, while being cognisant of the possibility of its disappearance in the absence of someone from the family of country’s founder, her father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. “If death comes, I want it to come on my own soil, where my parents are buried and where their blood was shed,” she said.
