On the eventful afternoon of Monday, two requests reached Delhi from Dhaka almost simultaneously. This occurred right after Sheikh Hasina decided to resign as prime minister following a meeting with the army at Ganabhaban.
The first request came directly from Sheikh Hasina. She sought "approval" from Delhi to come to India "for the time being."
The second request also arrived almost at the same time from the Bangladeshi authorities (military?). They sought "flight clearance" for a military aircraft carrying Sheikh Hasina to India. After obtaining permission, the plane carrying Sheikh Hasina landed near Delhi on Monday evening.
This information was not disclosed by any unknown source. It was India's Foreign Minister S Jaishankar himself who shared these details in his statement to the upper house of the Indian Parliament on Tuesday afternoon. India has finally broken its silence on the Bangladesh situation.
But how exactly did Sheikh Hasina spend an entire day after landing at the Hindon Airbase near Delhi?
Upon her arrival in Delhi, she was welcomed at the airport by India's National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and a few other officials.
Ajit Doval was there as an envoy of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. They had a lengthy conversation while having tea in the lounge of the airbase terminal building.
Sheikh Hasina's daughter, Saima Wazed Putul, who has been spending considerable time in Delhi since last year as the regional director of the World Health Organization, happened to be out of the city. She was in Thailand.
Upon her mother’s arrival in Delhi, Putul spoke directly with Hasina from Thailand and then set out for Delhi.
Sheikh Hasina's son, Sajeeb Wazed Joy, spoke with his mother multiple times from the US.
Temporary stopover
It should be clarified here that initially, India thought that Sheikh Hasina's landing in India was a temporary stopover.
Even when she sought approval from India, it was for "the time being." Therefore, officials in Delhi assumed she might spend a few hours there before heading to a third country, which would be her final destination.
Indian officials were fairly certain that the third destination would be the UK.
One of the main reasons was that her sister, Sheikh Rehana, who is a British passport holder, was with her.
Sheikh Rehana's daughter, Tulip Siddiq, is a senior MP of the ruling Labour Party and a junior minister in Britain.
Sheikh Hasina herself has spent a long time in London.
Moreover, given Britain's history of granting political asylum to deposed leaders from various countries, it was assumed that there would be no problem here either.
In fact, by around 6pm (about an hour after Sheikh Hasina's plane landed in Hindon), a source at the Ministry of External Affairs said: "She has landed in Delhi as a stopover. We assume she will leave for London by around 9pm."
Discussions had already begun about whether the C-130 transport aircraft of the Bangladesh Air Force that brought her to Delhi would take her to London or if she would go on an Indian aircraft or a regular commercial flight.
However, as the evening progressed, it became increasingly clear that the matter of granting asylum in Britain would not be as easy as initially thought.
By nightfall, the British High Commissioner in Delhi, Lindy Cameron, unofficially informed the Indian authorities that the asylum request was still under consideration and would take time to decide.
Then, urgent contacts were made with multiple Scandinavian countries, including Finland, to see if she could at least temporarily seek asylum there. However, there was no significant progress on this by night.
Indian authority concerned
Meanwhile, an emergency meeting of India's Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) was held at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's residence, where the Bangladesh situation was discussed in detail.
Senior officials, including Foreign Minister S Jaishankar, Home Minister Amit Shah, and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, attended the meeting.
Realizing that Sheikh Hasina would not be able to leave that night, she and Sheikh Rehana were moved from the terminal lounge at Hindon Airbase.
She was kept under strict security at a guesthouse or safe house of the paramilitary forces in Indirapuram, Ghaziabad, a little distance from Hindon.
As of Tuesday afternoon, they were still there. However, they might later be moved to another location that is more secure and easier to keep secret.
Meanwhile, the Indian government realized that Sheikh Hasina might not be able to leave India quickly.
At a multi-party meeting called by the Indian government on Tuesday morning regarding the Bangladesh situation, Foreign Minister S Jaishankar hinted that Sheikh Hasina would stay in India for now.
He also mentioned that the Indian government had had preliminary discussions with Sheikh Hasina. "India wants to give her more time for her future plans," some sources quoted S Jaishankar as saying.
Meanwhile, around 9am on Tuesday, when the Bangladesh Air Force C-130 aircraft took off, Indian news agency ANI reported that "the plane took off with Sheikh Hasina."
Shortly after, it corrected the mistake, noting that Bangladeshi military officials returned to Dhaka on that plane, but Sheikh Hasina was not on it.
Therefore, Sheikh Hasina spent 24 hours in Delhi in a rather uncertain situation.
An official who saw her last night and today said: "No matter how mentally distressed she is, she is not showing it outwardly. She is speaking and discussing (matters) normally. Physically, she is also healthy!"