Returning home and the fight over passports: a question that keeps coming back in Bangladesh politics

The question of the travel pass has come into wide discussion after the legal advisers of Sheikh Hasina, the prime minister ousted in August 2024, applied to the Bangladesh High Commission in Delhi seeking a passport and national identity card on her behalf.

After Sheikh Hasina was ousted on August 5, 2024, her passport was cancelled during the interim government. The passport issue of the former prime minister came to the fore this year after she announced her return to the country.

The government has long been talking about 'extraditing Sheikh Hasina'. The foreign ministry of Bangladesh has said that it wants to bring Sheikh Hasina back through the extradition treaty with India, not through a passport.

'Bangladesh wants India to return Sheikh Hasina; the question of a passport does not arise here,' the country's state minister for foreign affairs has said. But the question is whether a government can stop a citizen of a country from returning home, or say no to them.

Dr Rayhan Rashid, a UK-based international law expert, says, 'Considering the Constitution of Bangladesh, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations and various international laws, no government can create obstacles for a citizen to return to their own country.'

In his view, Sheikh Hasina's issue is political, and that is why politics is getting more importance than law from the government's side.

It may be mentioned that the current home minister, Salahuddin Ahmed, had to return home on a travel pass during the interim government, after disappearing in the country during the Awami League government and then staying in India for nine years. The current prime minister, Tarique Rahman, who was in political asylum in the United Kingdom during the Awami League government, also returned home on a travel pass after the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government.

Again, during the Awami League government, BNP leaders including Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and Ruhul Kabir Rizvi had to approach the court to get passports.

However, there is a rule that if someone's passport is cancelled while they are outside the country, they can apply for a new passport at the Bangladesh embassy in that country by submitting the old passport.

According to Article 13(2) of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations, everyone has the right to leave any country, including their own, and to return to their own country.

Again, under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, issuing and renewing passports for citizens staying abroad and providing various consular services are among the main responsibilities of the embassy or consular mission of the country concerned. Bangladesh signed the 'Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations' in 1978.

But whatever the Constitution, international law or various recognised international agreements say, instances of obstructing political leaders from returning from abroad or getting passports are not new in Bangladesh. The country's political history also includes the example of the army-backed caretaker government imposing a ban on Sheikh Hasina's return in 2007.

In that year, Sheikh Hasina went to the United States on March 15 on a one-month personal visit. She was scheduled to return on April 16. But in the meantime she announced that she would return on April 23. In such a situation, the then army-backed caretaker government announced through a press note on April 18 that a ban had been imposed on Sheikh Hasina's return to the country.

Then, although Sheikh Hasina left the United States for home on April 22, when she arrived at Heathrow Airport in the United Kingdom, British Airways refused to give her a boarding pass. She then stayed in London. Later, on April 25, the government withdrew the ban on her return through another press note. After that, she returned to Dhaka on May 8.

Again, after staying in London for more than seventeen years, the current prime minister Tarique Rahman returned home in December 2025 on a travel pass. His party had said that he had applied for political asylum there in 2012.

During the Awami League rule, Mr Rahman was sentenced in several cases. Among them, he was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2018 in the August 21 grenade attack case. In addition, he was sentenced to nine years' imprisonment in 2023 in a case of wealth beyond known income. In the Zia Orphanage Trust corruption case, the court also sentenced Tarique Rahman along with the late Khaleda Zia.

After the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government, Tarique Rahman was acquitted in all cases. After the controversy over the passport arose, the BNP secretary general said at a press conference in 2018, 'Tarique Rahman is not safe in Bangladesh and that is why he has sought political asylum in the United Kingdom.'

Later, during the interim government, at an event in Dhaka in November 2025, the then foreign affairs adviser Touhid Hossain had said, 'If Tarique Rahman wants to come to the country, there is no restriction; a travel pass can be given in one day. The rule is that when someone does not have a passport or it has expired, if they want to come, we give them a one-time pass to come home once. It takes one day.'

Eventually, after more than seventeen years, Tarique Rahman returned home from the United Kingdom on December 25. On December 27, he went to the Election Training Institute building in Agargaon to get his name enrolled in the voter list and complete the national identity card registration process. It may be mentioned that a national identity card is required for Bangladeshi citizens over 18 to get a passport.

On the other hand, Salahuddin Ahmed returned home on a travel pass on August 11, 2024, after nine years in India. He had been in Shillong in the Indian state of Meghalaya since May 11, 2015. Before that, he had been missing inside the country for two months.

During the movement of the then opposition BNP against the Awami League government, Salahuddin Ahmed went missing from Uttara in the capital on March 10, 2015. News reports at the time said that 63 days after his disappearance, local police recovered Salahuddin in Shillong, Meghalaya, India, on May 11.

While in India, his passport expired on July 11, 2016. But because he was in India, he did not get the opportunity to renew his passport in the country. The Meghalaya police showed him arrested under the Foreigners Act on charges of entering India without valid documents. Later, a formal charge of infiltration was framed against him in a lower court in India.

In that case, he was acquitted by the lower court in 2018. However, when the Indian government appealed against the verdict, he had to stay there. While in prison in India, the BNP elected him a member of its standing committee. Then, on February 28, 2023, Salahuddin was acquitted on appeal as well, and the court directed that he be sent back to the country.

As he had no passport, Salahuddin later applied to the Assistant High Commission of Bangladesh in Guwahati for a travel permit to return home. Although he was given a travel pass in 2023, he did not return home then.

After the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government, he was given a travel pass from the Assistant High Commission in Guwahati on August 6, 2024, and arrived in Dhaka by air on August 11.

Article 36 of the Constitution of Bangladesh states, 'Subject to any reasonable restrictions imposed by law in the interests of the public, every citizen shall have the right to move freely throughout Bangladesh, to reside and settle in any place therein and to leave and re-enter Bangladesh.'

Again, a citizen must have a passport to travel to another country. It is mainly used as a travel document of a country. According to the Constitution, leaving Bangladesh for abroad and returning home through a passport is a fundamental right of a citizen.

However, the government can cancel a passport if it wants. Under 'The Bangladesh Passport Order, 1973', decisions on issuing and cancelling passports of Bangladeshi citizens and related matters are taken. The government takes the decision to cancel a passport under this order.

On the grounds on which a passport can be cancelled, the order says it can be cancelled in the interest of the sovereignty, integrity or security of the state or in the public interest. A passport can be cancelled if the holder is convicted for more than two years for moral turpitude, if any court of the country issues an order or injunction regarding the passport holder, if someone obtains a passport by concealing information, or if one person's passport is in another person's control.

After the fall of Sheikh Hasina's government, on August 22, 2024, the Security Services Division of the Ministry of Home Affairs issued a notification cancelling the diplomatic passports of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, her advisers and cabinet members, as their appointments or terms had ended.

The government then said that the passports of 22 people involved in enforced disappearances and killings and 75 people accused in the July killings had been cancelled. Those whose diplomatic passports were cancelled could apply for ordinary passports if they wished.

Now Sheikh Hasina's legal advisory team has applied to the Bangladesh High Commission in India regarding her passport and national identity card. Although the Constitution and international law make a citizen's right to return home clear, this question has come back again and again in Bangladesh's politics — and each time it has been politics, not law, that has answered it.