Bangladesh's ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina has told The Associated Press that she remains committed to returning to Bangladesh from exile in India next month, despite being sentenced to death over her government's deadly crackdown on protesters — and Dhaka answered within hours on Thursday, ruling out any passport or travel document for her and insisting her return can only happen through the extradition treaty with India.

Source: Associated Press, Nov 5; TBS News, Nov 5

"If death is my destiny, I would rather die on the soil of my own country, among my own people," Hasina told the AP in response to questions submitted by email last week, to which she responded on Wednesday. "So, I will return to Bangladesh. That decision has not changed." She first announced in August her intention to return in December; Thursday's interview is her confirmation, weeks out, that the plan stands.

Source: Associated Press, Nov 5

"I know that I may be arrested when I return. I may be imprisoned, tortured or even killed. I am fully aware of those possibilities. But I cannot spend the rest of my life watching my people suffer from a distance," she told the AP. Hasina, who was prime minister from 2009 to 2024, did not disclose how she plans to return from India, and she could face arrest upon arrival in Bangladesh. The Press Wing of the prime minister's office in Dhaka did not respond to an AP request for comment on her remarks.

Source: Associated Press, Nov 5

Dhaka's answer: no passport, extradition only

Bangladesh's government responded on Thursday through State Minister for Foreign Affairs Humaiun Kobir, who ruled out issuing any passport or travel pass to Hasina and said Bangladesh would seek her return from India exclusively through the existing bilateral extradition treaty, TBS News reported. Bangladesh has repeatedly sought Hasina's extradition since she fled, but India has declined to hand her over, the AP reported.

Source: TBS News, Nov 5; Associated Press, Nov 5

India's own public position has stayed non-committal. India's High Commissioner to Bangladesh, Dinesh Trivedi, stressed on October 3 that Hasina was not brought to India by the Indian Air Force or the Indian Army, and said of her return: "Nobody can give you a timeframe," TBS News reported. That leaves the December plan resting on a route neither capital has described — Hasina has not said how she would travel, and Dhaka says the only lawful route it recognises is extradition into custody.

Source: TBS News, Nov 5

The sentence she is flying home to

In 2025, a Bangladeshi special tribunal sentenced Hasina to death for crimes against humanity, ruling that she was responsible for ordering the crackdown on the student-led protests of 2024, which left hundreds of people dead and thousands of others injured, the AP reported. The United Nations has said in a report that nearly 1,400 people were killed in the unrest. Hasina fled to India after the protests forced her from power and has remained there ever since.

Source: Associated Press, Nov 5

Hasina denies any wrongdoing. She has rejected the tribunal's verdict and challenged the legitimacy of the trial, the AP reported. In the same interview she alleged that 20,000 of her party's members have been killed since August 2024 — an allegation the AP carried as her claim, not as a verified figure.

Source: Associated Press, Nov 5 (corrected version)

What happens next

December is now a fixed point both governments are talking around: Hasina says she is coming, Dhaka says the only door is an extradition that would put her in custody to face the death sentence, and New Delhi — which has declined to extradite her and has not said it will help or hinder a voluntary return — holds the practical key, because she is on Indian soil. Any announcement of a date or route from Hasina, or any Indian statement on her movement, would turn a war of statements into a live diplomatic crisis between the two neighbours.