Virginia: Sajeeb Wazed Joy, son of Bangladesh’s ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, has sharply criticised Dhaka’s attempt to seek her extradition from India, calling the legal cases against her “fundamentally illegitimate” and cautioning New Delhi about an escalating terrorism threat emerging from Bangladesh under the interim administration.
Speaking to ANI months after his mother was evacuated to India in August 2024, Wazed expressed deep gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for granting her refuge. He claimed that extremist groups in Bangladesh had formulated a plan to assassinate her before she fled the country.
Rejecting Bangladesh’s extradition request outright, Wazed alleged a systematic breakdown of judicial integrity in the cases filed against Hasina.
According to him, “They terminated 17 judges before the trial, amended laws illegally without parliamentary approval, and barred her defence attorneys from court proceedings.”
He argued that no democratic nation would cooperate with an extradition plea built on such a compromised process and said he was confident Indian authorities would decline the request.
Sheikh Hasina, who ruled Bangladesh for over 15 years, currently faces multiple criminal charges pressed by the interim government. However, Wazed contends that the legal framework has been manipulated to target her politically.
Detailing the events leading to her exit, Wazed credited New Delhi for averting what he described as an imminent threat to her life. “India has essentially saved my mother’s life. If she hadn’t left Bangladesh, the militants had planned on killing her,” he said.
Reflecting on the turmoil that led to Hasina’s ouster, Wazed acknowledged missteps in the initial handling of the protests in July 2024 but maintained that what followed was not a mass uprising but a coordinated “political coup.”
