India’s High Commissioner to Bangladesh, Dinesh Trivedi, has put Dhaka on the backfoot. On the question of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s extradition, he has redirected focus to the role played by the Bangladesh military during the July uprising in 2024 and afterward.
If there were doubts in diplomatic circles over the appointment of a former Union Minister as India’s High Commissioner to Bangladesh in April 2026, they have been put to rest. Trivedi has proved that Delhi has indeed sent the right man for the job to Dhaka.
When he was sent to Dhaka as the new Indian envoy, the appointment of a non-career diplomat raised eyebrows among the Indian Foreign Service cadre. This signalled the Modi government’s gamble in selecting a politician to reset Delhi-Dhaka ties during such uncertain times.
Bangladesh seems to be asking more questions of its own army now and less of India regarding Hasina’s extradition date.
Hasina question, a timely answer
At the press conference held after a panel discussion titled “Power and Prudence” at the Bay of Bengal Conversation 2026 in Dhaka on 3 October, Trivedi said India had “hardly any choice” but to allow the aircraft carrying Sheikh Hasina to land in India in 2024. He also stressed that the legal process concerning her return to Bangladesh is under way.
Trivedi said that India had neither called Hasina nor was it prepared for her arrival. The former Prime Minister of Bangladesh had reached India after the fall of her government in August 2024.
“Hasina ji was not brought to India by Indian Air Force or Indian Army,” Trivedi clarified. He said the military aircraft carrying her arrived in India amid what he described as “tragic circumstances” in Bangladesh. He added that it was India’s “duty as a neighbour to accept the reality of life”.
Hasina’s extradition has been a sore point between India and Bangladesh. Since the July uprising, Bangladesh has had two regime changes. The first came after the fall of the Hasina regime, the unelected caretaker government headed by Muhammad Yunus, and then the elected Bangladesh Nationalist government under the prime ministership of Tarique Rahman from February this year.
When Modi and Yunus met on the sidelines of the BIMSTEC summit in Thailand in April 2025, Yunus reportedly sought Hasina’s extradition. “India has defied requests from Bangladesh to extradite Hasina to face charges of mass murder, souring relationships between the countries,” Deutsche Welle reported.
Dhaka formally sought Hasina’s extradition on 21 November 2025. It was after Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal read out the death sentence verdict against Hasina for “crimes committed against humanity”.
After the Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s landslide victory in February, senior party leader Salahuddin Ahmed said the party fully supports ongoing diplomatic efforts to bring Hasina back under legal procedures.
“We always press for her extradition according to the law. This is between the foreign ministries of the two countries. We also asked the government of India to please send her back to face trial in Bangladesh,” Ahmed said.
Tensions between India and Bangladesh over the Hasina question escalated sharply after the former prime minister’s virtual press conference from New Delhi on 5 August 2026, her first since she left Bangladesh two years ago.
In a strongly worded statement, Bangladesh’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs criticised India for allowing Hasina to address the media from its territory. It called the move an “affront to the sovereignty of Bangladesh” and an insult to those killed during the 2024 uprising. Bangladesh also renewed its demand for Hasina’s extradition under the 2013 extradition treaty between the two countries.
Trivedi’s 3 October remarks in Dhaka, which reminded Bangladesh that its own military had sent a sitting prime minister to an unprepared India, turned the tables on Dhaka and forced it to confront an entirely different question: what role did the Bangladesh military play during and after the July 2024 uprising?
Is Army controlling Bangladesh?
In June 2025, during an interview for my book Inshallah Bangladesh: The Story of an Unfinished Revolution, Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, Minister of Home Affairs in the Sheikh Hasina government, said that the Bangladesh Army chief Waker-uz Zaman had betrayed Hasina during the July 2024 uprising. He said that led to the fall of her government on 5 August 2024.
Kamal said that General Waker had asked the Army to not stop protestors from storming into Hasina’s official residence. Even though the Army chief is a distant relative of Hasina, and he was appointed by Hasina herself. He is also the one who sent Hasina to India in a military helicopter to save her from the angry protestors.
Kamal had told me in the interview that Waker had played both sides. On the one hand, he had come across as Hasina’s saviour by sending her off to India and on the other, he had given a free hand to the angry mob on the streets to topple Hasina’s government.
Tania Amir, Bangladeshi barrister and rights activist, has said law and order is still being managed in Bangladesh by the Army and not by the police, which reports to Bangladesh Home Minister Salahuddin Ahmed.
“It has been more two years since the tumultuous events of July 2024. Why is the army not going back to the barracks? The civilian government should understand that the army can backstab it anytime,” Amir said.
No investigation has been conducted on the 400 police stations that were set on fire during the July uprising, Amir said. In the course of the student-led protests in July and August 2024, 44 policemen were killed.
“No civilian government will be in charge of law and order unless the full dignity of its police force is restored in Bangladesh,” Amir said.
Kamal told me that he had informed General Waker about ISI-based shooters killing policemen during the July revolution and the police having to return fire in defence.
“The General had told me his men would handle the situation. They didn’t,” Kamal said.
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Army chief losing grip
Amid this renewed debate over the Bangladesh Army’s role in the country’s political affairs since July 2024, reports have emerged that restricted posting orders issued on 8 September this year have reshaped the command structure of several Dhaka-based formations.
The report suggests that General Waqar-uz-Zaman is facing a gradual erosion of his operational influence, even as Bangladesh government Defence Adviser Brig (retd) AKM Shamsul Islam has played a big role in effecting transfers and postings across units considered key to any Army chief’s authority.
General Waker-uz-Zaman was Army chief when Sheikh Hasina left Bangladesh. He remains the Army chief as the time for Hasina’s stated December return to her country nears.
Dinesh Trivedi has done well in reminding Dhaka that the real questions around Hasina’s exit and re-entry are best asked inside the country and not outside.
Deep Halder is an author and a contributing editor at ThePrint. He tweets @deepscribble. Views are personal.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)