Foreign secretary has “no comment” on Hasina’s passport application as PM heads to Turkey tomorrow

Ousted former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who is in India, has applied for a new passport and national identity card (NID). A Reuters report says she filed the application on Monday as part of a plan to return to the country in December.

The report notes that neither the Bangladesh High Commission in Delhi nor a spokesperson for Prime Minister Tarique Rahman in Dhaka immediately commented on the matter.

The issue was, however, raised this morning with the new Foreign Secretary, Salahuddin Noman Chowdhury, at a press conference at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs held on Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s visit to Turkey.

He told journalists that the prime minister would travel to Turkey tomorrow, Tuesday, on a two-day visit to attend the COP-31 world climate conference. “Today we are mainly talking about the COP-31 conference. I have no comment on this matter (Hasina’s passport),” he said.

Reuters says a letter about Hasina’s application for a new passport and NID has reached the news agency. It is her first formal communication since she fled Bangladesh for India in 2024.

The letter was sent by lawyers from the London-based legal firm Matrix Chambers. Addressed to Preeti Rahman, the acting High Commissioner at the Bangladesh High Commission in Delhi, it requests the issue of a new passport and NID for Hasina.

The letter says it is understood that the interim government and the relevant authorities have cancelled Sheikh Hasina’s previous passport and NID. The lawyers have requested that the necessary steps be taken to issue the two new identity documents quickly, on the basis of her Bangladeshi citizenship and in line with international human rights obligations.

Sheikh Hasina was ousted in the student-led uprising of August 2024. She has been in India since then. In November 2025, the International Crimes Tribunal sentenced her to death in absentia on charges of ordering a lethal crackdown to suppress the movement.

Sheikh Hasina’s move to return home could create fresh tension in Bangladesh’s politics. Her party, the Awami League, is currently banned. Many of its leaders and activists are in jail, while others are in India and other countries.

Reuters says sheltering Sheikh Hasina has also strained relations between Bangladesh and India, and the news agency believes her return initiative could create a new equation in the relationship between the two countries.

Citing Awami League leaders, the report says the specific timetable for her return will be finalised only after all necessary legal and institutional formalities are completed.