Site icon Bangladeshi Help

Due to which it is difficult to return Sheikh Hasina from India under the extradition treaty


India and Bangladesh have had an agreement since 2013 to hand over accused or extraditable accused and detainees to each other in 'extraditable offences' cases.

But observers and experts in Delhi think that there is virtually no possibility of her being returned under this agreement even if there are one case after another case against the former Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, who is currently in India.

Delhi does not want to open its mouth about the Indian government's position if such a request really comes from the Bangladesh government.

External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said, “If you talk about extradition, it is a completely hypothetical question. It is not our custom to answer any hypothetical question under such circumstances!”

While avoiding a specific answer for now, Delhi is not ruling out the possibility that such a request may come from Dhaka in the coming days.

Besides, there are indications from the top echelons of the interim government in Bangladesh that this possibility may not remain 'imaginary' for much longer.

As Bangladesh's current foreign advisor M Touhid Hossain said in an interview to Reuters last week, based on the cases against Sheikh Hasina, the Ministry of Home Affairs and Law will decide whether to request this extradition to India or not.

“In that case, according to the agreement between the two countries, it will be necessary to return him to Bangladesh”, he commented.

But the reality is that even if an extradition request is made under that agreement, it will not be easy to protect that request.

Because, there are several provisions or conditions in that agreement, using any of which India can reject this request.

The request can be left day after day after showing various legal complications or beatings.

Most importantly – Sheikh Hasina has been one of India's most trusted and loyal friends for the past 50 years.

As a result, India will hand him over to Bangladesh for trial or, if convicted, for punishment – ​​a possibility that is virtually non-existent.

It is not difficult to come up with a thousand arguments for this move. Meanwhile, if Sheikh Hasina takes refuge in a third country, then India will not have to face any discomfort.

That is why India is avoiding the answer by calling the question 'hypothetical' for now.

But if an extradition request does come, it can be held up or denied on some grounds – that's what this report looks at.

'Political Adventure'

The extradition treaty signed in 2013 between Bangladesh and India has an important clause – that is – the request can be dismissed if the charges against the person whose extradition is being requested are of a 'political nature'.

However, the list of crimes that cannot be called 'political' is long – including murder, disappearances, involuntary manslaughter, bombings and terrorism.

Now in the last two weeks, among all the cases filed against Sheikh Hasina in Bangladesh, there are various allegations of murder, genocide, disappearance and torture.

As a result, it is difficult to dismiss them as apparently 'political'.

On top of that, when the original agreement was amended in 2016, a clause was added that made the transfer process much easier.

Article 10(3) of the revised treaty stated that when seeking the extradition of an accused, the requesting country may not present any evidence in support of those charges – only the production of an arrest warrant from the relevant court will be considered as a valid request.

That means, if the court orders the issuance of an arrest warrant against Sheikh Hasina in any of the cases filed against Sheikh Hasina in Bangladesh, then the Bangladesh government can request her extradition to India based on that.

But even then there are clauses in the treaty which the requesting country has the right to reject.

For example, a request from another country can be rejected if the person is prosecuted for an 'extraditable offence' in the requesting country.

However, this does not apply to Sheikh Hasina, as there is no case against her in India, nor is there likely to be one soon.

The second clause is that if the requesting country feels that the “complaints are not brought in good faith, only in the interest of justice” – they still have the power to reject them.

If the charges are for 'military offences' – which do not fall within the scope of ordinary criminal law – the request can be refused in the same way.

Now if India does indeed receive any request for Sheikh Hasina's extradition, analysts in Delhi feel that it can be rejected by invoking the second clause.

“First of all, I don't think Bangladesh's interim government will make any formal request for Sheikh Hasina's extradition to India,” said Smruti Patnaik, senior fellow at strategic thinktank IDSA.

According to him, this would lead to the risk of a sour relationship between the two countries – a risk that a new government in Bangladesh may not take in this critical situation.

He further added, “Even if this request is made, India will have sufficient reason to consider it politically expedient.”

“For example, the way former education minister Dipu Moni was killed when he was brought to court on Tuesday, or before that former industry advisor Salman F Rahman or former law minister Anisul Haque had to be harassed in court – then if they are handed over to Bangladesh for trial – Sheikh Hasina's Who will guarantee that the same result will not happen?”

Simply put – with the examples of all these incidents, India can easily say that they do not think that Sheikh Hasina will get a fair and just trial in Bangladesh and that is why she cannot be extradited.

Many observers in Delhi are of the opinion that the extradition request can then be rejected by using this clause, i.e. “complaints are made only in the interests of justice, not in good faith”.

Time wasting road?

However, another group of analysts in India feel that if there is indeed a request from India to hand over Sheikh Hasina – then Delhi can hang on to it day after day without rejecting it immediately or outright.

India's former top diplomat TCA Raghavan says bluntly, India's policy of sheltering Sheikh Hasina at the moment of danger is India's policy – putting her in 'greater danger' cannot be an 'option' for India!

He thinks that finding any 'way' or any 'logic' is not a problem for him.

One thing must be remembered, if we do not stand by Sheikh Hasina now, then no leader of a friendly country anywhere in the world will be able to trust India, will not be able to trust India”, said Mr. Raghavan.

And this 'standing aside' could be one way – making Sheikh Hasina's extradition request indefinitely uncertain.

This is because all such contracts contain various 'loopholes' or 'loopholes' – which legal experts can use to delay a request for months or even years.

Many analysts are sure that India will take a similar path in the case of Sheikh Hasina (if her extradition request comes through).

Pinakaranjan Chakraborty, former Secretary of the Indian Ministry of External Affairs and former Ambassador of India to Dhaka, reminds again that even requests under such agreements take years to be granted.

“Since 2008, India has been trying to get Tahaur Hussain Rana – a US citizen of Pakistani origin – one of the accused in the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai,” he said.

“Now suppose, there is an extradition treaty between India and America but that is from 1997. India made this deal with the US before many other countries – so it should have been in India's hands by now, right?”

“But we saw just last week (August 15) that a California court ruled that Rana can be handed over to India. Already almost 16 years have passed, now see how much more time it takes to get hands”, said Mr. Chakraborty.

As a result, there is no reason to think that any request to India for the extradition of Sheikh Hasina will be settled within days or months.

And if Sheikh Hasina were to leave India for a third country before that (a possibility that government officials in Delhi are still not ruling out) – then there would be no question of any such request or decision being made based on it.

Source: BBC Bangla

Bangladesh /SBT




👇Follow more 👇
👉 bdphone.com
👉 ultraactivation.com
👉 trainingreferral.com
👉 shaplafood.com
👉 bangladeshi.help
👉 www.forexdhaka.com
👉 uncommunication.com
👉 ultra-sim.com
👉 forexdhaka.com
👉 ultrafxfund.com
👉 ultractivation.com
👉 bdphoneonline.com

Exit mobile version