Sheikh Hasina asks for a new passport in the clearest sign yet of her planned December return to Bangladesh

What did Hasina's lawyers actually ask for on Monday?

On Monday 9 November 2026, lawyers acting for Sheikh Hasina wrote to the Bangladesh High Commission in New Delhi and asked for a new Bangladeshi passport and a new national identity card for the ousted prime minister, so that she can return from exile in India. The letter, sent by the London law firm Matrix Chambers and seen by Reuters, was addressed to Preeti Rahman, the acting high commissioner at the Bangladeshi mission in the Indian capital. It asked that the applications be processed "expeditiously" on the basis of Hasina's Bangladeshi nationality, and it cited the reported cancellation of her existing passport and identity card by the interim government in Dhaka, alongside Bangladesh's obligations under international human rights instruments.

The request is the first formal communication from Hasina to the Bangladeshi authorities since she left the country for India on 5 August 2024, after a student-led uprising ended her fifteen years in power. Her existing passport was cancelled soon after her departure. A source in Dhaka told The Hindu that the High Commission had received the request and that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was examining the letter, with a decision to follow after internal consultations. Prothom Alo reported that the High Commission received the email on Monday morning and passed it to the ministry, which confirmed receipt.

What do we know about her plan to come back in December?

Hasina has said she intends to return to Bangladesh in December and surrender before a court, and her aides said on Monday that the date would be announced once various formalities were completed. She first announced the plan at a press conference at the Foreign Correspondents' Club on 5 August this year, and leaders of her Awami League based in India have repeated the promise since. According to Awami League sources cited by The Hindu, she may choose to return through one of the land crossings on the India-Bangladesh border, including Benapole-Petrapole. In an interview with The Associated Press this month, she said she would return in December "at any cost".

The return, if it happens, would close a circle that opened on 5 August 2024, when Hasina left Bangladesh for India as the uprising against her government reached its climax. The movement began as a protest against a job quota system for descendants of 1971 Liberation War fighters, and escalated after a police crackdown in mid-July 2024 left hundreds of students and other civilians dead. In November 2025, the International Crimes Tribunal, a special tribunal, sentenced Hasina to death in her absence for ordering the crackdown, a verdict delivered without representation from Hasina or her legal team. As many as 1,400 people may have been killed in the protests, according to United Nations estimates cited by Al Jazeera. Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus led the interim administration that took power after her fall.

Did Hasina herself authorise the request; and has Dhaka even received it?

The most awkward question hanging over the letter is whether Hasina herself asked for the documents. Prothom Alo reported, citing several diplomatic sources in Dhaka, that there is no way to ascertain that the application came from Hasina, because the email from Matrix Chambers contained no authorisation or proof document from her. When an institution applies on behalf of someone, it needs that person's authorisation, one of the sources said. Everything that follows assumes the request is genuinely hers.

Even the receipt of the letter is contested. The Daily Inqilab reported that the Foreign Ministry and the High Commission in New Delhi had rejected the Reuters account, with several diplomatic and government sources telling the paper that no application or letter had been received. That account stands against the ministry's own confirmation, reported by Prothom Alo, that the High Commission received the email and passed it to Dhaka, and against the Dhaka source who told The Hindu the ministry was examining it. What the ministry will decide, and when, is also unknown: officials have said only that a decision will follow internal consultations, and no date has been given for Hasina's return.

Why does a passport application carry the weight of a verdict?

A passport is a small document, but this one decides how, and whether, a former prime minister sentenced to death comes home. If Dhaka issues the papers, Hasina returns on her own terms, to surrender before a court, and the trial that sentenced her in her absence becomes a trial in her presence. If Dhaka refuses, she stays in exile, the death sentence stands unenforced, and the interim government's demand for extradition remains a request India has so far declined to grant. Either way, the decision lands in December, the month she has named for her return, and it will be read as a verdict on the uprising itself: whether the movement that removed her has produced a settlement, or only a stalemate.

The stakes reach beyond Bangladesh. India has acknowledged Dhaka's extradition demand without committing to hand her over, and a return arranged through a passport would spare New Delhi the choice between its neighbour's demand and its guest's fate. For the banned Awami League, her return is the party's only visible path back; for Dhaka, it is a test of whether a convicted former leader can be brought before a court without setting off the streets again. The letter turns a legal formality into the hinge of all of it.

How did a travel document become the centre of a trial held in absence?

The passport matters because the trial that condemned Hasina was held without her. A death sentence delivered in absentia, without representation, carries a legitimacy problem that has been pressed since November 2025. By asking for the documents to come back and surrender, she is offering Dhaka the one thing that could cure the defect: her presence. The price of that cure is that she returns as a petitioner, not a prisoner; and Dhaka, which calls her a terrorist and a fugitive, has no interest in paying it on her terms.

That is why the ministry's examination will be political as much as legal. Granting a passport concedes that Hasina is a citizen with rights, including the right to come home and face a court; refusing it keeps her an exile and leaves the sentence a paper verdict. India gains from delay: every week without a decision is a week it need not choose between a treaty partner and a guest. The letter's invocation of human rights instruments is aimed at precisely this triangle, turning a consular formality into a claim that the world is watching how Dhaka treats a citizen it has already condemned.

What happens if she lands at Benapole; and what if she never does?

If the documents are issued and Hasina crosses at Benapole-Petrapole in December, the first hours decide everything: whether she is arrested on arrival, whether she reaches a courtroom, whether her supporters gather and whether the authorities let them. A surrender before a court would reopen the tribunal's case with the defendant present, and the Awami League would gain a living symbol it has lacked for two years. A refusal at the border would hand her the argument that Dhaka fears a courtroom more than she does.

If the documents are refused and December passes without her, the extradition file becomes the only route, and India has shown no sign of moving on it. Dhaka would face the same question in harder form: a death sentence it cannot enforce, a banned party it cannot extinguish, and an exiled leader reminding voters that the uprising's verdict is unfinished. Either path ends at the same place, a courtroom, or the absence of one, and the choice of route will say more about the new Bangladesh than the verdict itself.

What should we watch for before December?

Three things, in order. First, the Foreign Ministry's decision after its internal consultations, and the briefing State Minister Humaiun Kobir is expected to give to the media. Second, whether Hasina's aides announce a date, and whether proof of her authorisation emerges to answer the doubt raised by Prothom Alo's sources. Third, India's response; whether New Delhi says anything at all about the passport request, and whether the extradition file moves. If documents are issued, the crossing at Benapole-Petrapole becomes the story of December; if the ministry refuses, the fight moves to the treaty table, where it has sat for two years.