Dhaka will send a reminder letter to New Delhi to send ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina back if the Indian government does not respond to the diplomatic note sent to the government of India on Monday.
“So far, we have not received any reply from New Delhi in an official channel. We will wait for their response and if no reply comes within a certain period, we will send a reminder letter,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mohammad Rafiqul Alam said at the weekly media briefing at the ministry on Tuesday afternoon.
On Monday, Bangladesh’s foreign ministry, through its mission in New Delhi, sent a diplomatic note requesting the Indian government to extradite Sheikh Hasina for judicial proceedings in Bangladesh.
Responding to questions, the spokesperson said Dhaka’s next steps to bring Hasina back will depend on India’s reply.
“We do not want to comment on it now or speculate about the situation,” Rafiqul added without disclosing any specific timeline for the waiting period.
Indian media outlets reported on Monday evening that the country’s Ministry of External Affairs had received Bangladesh’s diplomatic note regarding the extradition request.
However, the Indian ministry refrained from making any official comments to this end.
"We confirm that we have received a note verbale from the Bangladesh High Commission today regarding an extradition request. At this time, we have no comment to offer on this matter," Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said, as quoted by India Today during a press briefing.
Sheikh Hasina is accused in over 100 cases and faces a wide range of charges, including murder, mass killing and crimes against humanity over killings during the July uprising that led to her fleeing to India on August 5.
Bangladesh and India signed an extradition treaty in 2013, which was later amended in 2016, providing a legal framework for such requests.
