A photocopied passport of former Bangladesh’s dictator, Sheikh Hasina, has been circulating on social media, surprising millions of Bangladeshis who have been waiting to see dictator Hasina tried in a Bangladeshi court for genocide and forced disappearance of thousands of civilians.
Global Defense Corp contacted the Indian authority at Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO) and requested that FRRO confirms the authenticity of the passport, but has not received a response from the Indian government.
The passport has been produced by the Indian intelligence agency, Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), with the help of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), and its Central Passport Organisation (CPO), a subordinate office of the MEA, is also involved in passport issuance.
The published passport is not Artificial Intelligence (AI)-generated. It is a photocopy, possibly by individuals close to ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina or the Indian authority, which has submitted the passport to the local authority to prevent any intrusion by the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi, where Sheikh Hasina has been living under the protection of the Indian RAW.
In India, the Bureau of Immigration (BoI) under the Ministry of Home Affairs is the primary authority responsible for checking and managing immigration, including illegal immigration. A photocopied passport may have been submitted to the Bureau of Immigration (BoI), from where it may have been leaked to social media.
In a similar situation, former Prime Minister of Bangladesh Khaleda Zia’s son Tarique Rahman surrendered his Bangladeshi passport to the Bangladesh High Commission in London to receive political asylum in the UK.
Sheikh Hasina’s government was accused of widespread abuses, including the mass detention and extrajudicial killing of political opponents.
The UN rights office assessing the protest response had said in a preliminary report last week that there were “strong indications, warranting further independent investigation, that the security forces used unnecessary and disproportionate force”.
Hasina fled to India
On 5 August 2024, at around 2:25 p.m., former Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, resigned and fled the country on a helicopter with her sister, Sheikh Rehana, to India, arriving in Delhi via Agartala. Although she intended to record a speech, she did not have the opportunity to do so.
The protests were met with a brutal crackdown by law enforcement agencies and paramilitary forces, resulting in the massacre of students. By August, the protests intensified into a mass uprising against the government, which eventually culminated in Hasina resigning and fleeing to India.
A special tribunal indicted Bangladesh’s ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Thursday by accepting charges of crimes against humanity filed against her in connection with a mass uprising in which hundreds of students were killed last year.
A three-member panel, headed by Justice Golam Mortuza Mozumder, indicted Hasina, former Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan and former police chief Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun on five charges. Hasina and Khan are being tried in absentia.
Bangladesh’s interim government, headed by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, sent a formal request to India for Hasina’s extradition, but India has not responded. Khan is possibly also in India.
Al-Mamun, who was arrested and appeared before the panel on Thursday, pleaded guilty and told the tribunal that he would make a statement in favour of the prosecution at a later stage.
Bangladesh revoked Hasina’s passport
The interim government of Bangladesh has revoked the passports of 97 individuals, including ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, citing their alleged involvement in killings during the July uprising and incidents of enforced disappearances, local media reported.
The move to cancel Sheikh Hasina’s documents leaves the former autocratic leader in potential limbo. It comes on the same day that a United Nations team arrived in Dhaka to assess whether to investigate alleged human rights violations.
The former dictator does not have the necessary legal documents to stay in India. Still, the country has extended the visa of Bangladesh’s deposed Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who has been residing in the country since August last year, sources said. The move comes against the backdrop of mounting demands from the interim government in Bangladesh for her extradition.
Sources, however, refuted claims of Hasina, who fled Dhaka on August 5 amid violent protests by students, being granted asylum. They clarified that India lacks specific legislation for granting asylum and stressed that her visa extension should not be interpreted as a move towards offering refuge.
“This is purely a technical extension to facilitate her stay,” a source said. Sources have confirmed that Hasina has been living under tight security in a safehouse in Delhi.
The interim government in Bangladesh, led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, formally sought Hasina’s extradition on December 23. Officials in Dhaka claimed that Hasina must face charges related to her alleged involvement in incidents of violence and disappearances during the 2024 protests, which left over 500 people dead.
Sheikh Hasina and India’s Citizenship Amendment Act
The citizenship amendment law, which comes into force on the eve of elections, creates India’s first religion-based citizenship test, discriminating against Muslims and some other refugees.
The Indian government announced the implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), a law that was passed by parliament in 2019 but was not enforced until now.
This decision on the CAA, whose passage in parliament had set off protests across the country five years ago over allegations of an anti-Muslim bias, comes weeks before Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeks a third term in office through national elections.
The CAA expedites Indian citizenship applications of Hindus, Parsis, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and Christians who escaped to India from religious persecution in Muslim-majority Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan before December 31, 2014. They become eligible for citizenship in five years. Applicants from these faiths are eligible even if they are currently living in India without valid visas or other required paperwork.
Home Minister Amit Shah, a close confidant of Modi, posted on X that the law will enable minorities persecuted on religious grounds in neighbouring countries to acquire Indian citizenship.
Sheikh Hasina’s Indian passport and legal limbo
To legally stay in India, foreigners generally need a valid visa and must register with the Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO) if their stay exceeds 180 days. Additionally, travellers may require permits for restricted or protected areas.
Most foreigners need to apply for a visa before arriving in India, either through the online portal for e-visas or by contacting an Indian embassy or consulate.
Foreigners should be aware of and comply with all applicable local laws and regulations, including those related to public spaces, alcohol consumption, and interactions with wildlife.
Granting Sheikh Hasina an Indian passport will allow local authorities to permit her to stay in that country. As contentious as it is, Hasina does not have any legal travel documents to remain in India or any other country. She cannot use her Indian passport to travel to the UK to stay with her niece and sister, nor can she travel to the U.S. using her newly acquired Indian passport. She is well known globally and cannot use a passport from another country to enter the EU or America.
Sheikh Hasina may have been granted an Indian passport to comply with local laws, and the Modi Government has been avoiding legal issues within the country.
Granting Hasina an Indian passport creates a dual citizenship problem in India. The Indian constitution does not allow Indian nationals holding Indian citizenship and citizenship of another country simultaneously, which means that Sheikh Hasina must surrender her Bangladeshi citizenship to remain an Indian citizen.
According to DW News, the Modi government will not comply with the extradition treaty between Bangladesh and India, signed many years ago, to extradite Indian terrorists living in Bangladesh.
© 2025, GDC. © GDC and www.globaldefensecorp.com. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to www.globaldefensecorp.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
