Hasina's passport application may be a tactic to blame the government, says former US diplomat

Retired US diplomat John F. Danilovich, who served as Deputy Chief of Mission in Bangladesh, has said there may be a political motive behind ousted former prime minister Sheikh Hasina's application for a new passport and national identity card (NID), following her fall in the mass uprising.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday (10 November), he said Hasina's application for a passport and NID could essentially be a strategy to blame the Bangladesh government.

According to Danilovich, through this she may be trying to send the message that the government is obstructing her stated wish to return home.

Danilovich further said the country sheltering Sheikh Hasina may also be trying to extricate itself from the situation created around her. He said there may also be an initiative to persuade a third country to accept Sheikh Hasina.

John F. Danilovich is a retired diplomat of the US State Department. He served as Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy in Bangladesh from September 2007 to August 2011.

During that time, he worked under then Ambassador Dan W. Mozena.

While in office, he worked with the Bangladesh government on the process of the Bangladesh-United States Trade and Investment Cooperation Forum Agreement (TICFA).

He was a well-known and much-discussed diplomat in Bangladesh's political circles.