The Phantom of Dhaka: Sheikh Hasina’s Virtual Return Tests Bangladesh’s New Rulers

Two years after fleeing a bloody popular uprising by helicopter, former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is preparing to address her nation from the safety of New Delhi. The new government in Dhaka has responded with a swift broadcast ban, revealing the enduring political anxiety surrounding the exiled autocrat.

The seventy-eight-year-old politician is scheduled to appear via video link at an event hosted by the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of South Asia. Billed rather optimistically as a homecoming, the virtual gathering will feature Hasina alongside her son, Sajeeb Wazed Joy, and former Awami League minister Mohibul Hasan Chowdhury Nowfel. The reaction from Dhaka was entirely predictable. The current administration immediately prohibited local media from airing the speech, prompting Hasina’s aides to accuse the new government of silencing dissent. There is a rich irony in a deposed strongwoman, whose own seventeen-year tenure was marked by severe media repression, suddenly discovering the virtues of free speech from a foreign capital.

Hasina’s sudden departure in August 2024 followed weeks of violent student-led protests over government job quotas. The state's response was brutal, resulting in an estimated 1,400 deaths and 20,000 injuries. A caretaker administration took control, organizing elections in February 2026 that delivered a two-thirds majority to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party under Tarique Rahman. The Awami League was simply barred from participating. In the meantime, the Bangladeshi judiciary sentenced Hasina to death in absentia for crimes against humanity, a verdict she dismisses as legally invalid. Official inquiries have also implicated her regime in the enforced disappearances of some 1,500 political rivals from the BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami.

Despite Dhaka’s persistent extradition requests, New Delhi has provided the former prime minister with a comfortable sanctuary. The Indian government has brushed off complaints about the upcoming broadcast by categorising the event as a private media function. This diplomatic friction is not new. When Hasina delivered an audio address in January, accusing then-interim leader Muhammad Yunus of presiding over a fascist regime, the Bangladeshi Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a furious formal condemnation. The ministry released an official statement declaring that allowing the event to take place in the Indian capital and letting mass murderer Hasina openly deliver her hate speech constitute a clear affront to the people and the Government of Bangladesh. They further accused her of inciting terrorism to sabotage the February electoral process.

Now, Hasina is floating the idea of a physical return. She recently indicated plans to travel back to Bangladesh in December to face the courts, acknowledging the risk of imprisonment or execution. This calculated gamble appears designed less as a genuine surrender and more as a desperate bid to maintain political relevance. By threatening to return, she forces the new government to choose between executing an elderly former leader and demonstrating weakness. Whether she actually boards a flight to Dhaka or merely uses the prospect to haunt the new administration, the ghost of the old regime continues to dictate the political weather in Bangladesh.

Written by Andreas Hofer andreas.hofer@alpineweekly.com