Ousted PM will return to Bangladesh, son says

The ousted Bangladeshi Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, will return to the nation when elections are declared, her son Sajeeb Wazed Joy says.

Ms Hasina, who resigned and fled the nation earlier this week following a large unrest, is at present in India.

Bangladeshi media say greater than 500 folks had been killed in weeks of demonstrations towards Ms Hasina. Many of them had been shot by the police.

Thousands had been injured within the worst violence Bangladesh has seen since its warfare of independence in 1971.

“Absolutely, she will come [to Bangladesh],” Mr Wazed tells the Daily News, saying his mom will return as and when the interim authorities decides to carry the polls.

The military-backed interim authorities, headed by Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus, was sworn in on Thursday together with 16 advisers.

Two of the scholar protest leaders are among the many advisers.

Mr Wazed is an info expertise professional who now lives within the US.

He labored as an IT adviser for Ms Hasina for a number of years throughout her tenure as prime minister from 2009 to 2024.

“She will certainly go back,” her son says.

“Whether she comes back into politics or not, that decision has not been made. She is quite fed up with how she was treated.”

The student-led movement started as a protest against quotas in civil service jobs last month before becoming massive unrest to oust Ms Hasina following a brutal police crackdown.

Mr Joy is confident that when the polls are held, the Awami League, the party of Ms Hasina, will emerge victorious.

“I am convinced that If you have elections in Bangladesh today, and if they are free and fair and if there’s a level playing field, then the Awami League will win,” he says.

Ms Hasina became prime minister for a fourth consecutive term in a controversial election held in January 2024.

The main opposition parties boycotted the election saying under Ms Hasina’s government there could not be “any free and fair election”.

Her son termed the present interim authorities as unconstitutional and mentioned elections ought to be held inside 90 days.

However, he was a bit circumspect about his political ambitions or whether or not he would return to the nation to face for the management of the Awami League, following within the footsteps of his grandfather, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding chief of Bangladesh, and Ms Hasina.

“No decision has been made in this regard. I never had political ambitions,” he says.

But he provides that he was upset over the way in which the protesters had ransacked and set hearth to their ancestral houses, together with the museum devoted to his grandfather in Dhaka.

“Under these circumstances, I am quite angry, I will do whatever it takes,” he says.

He says he’s in contact with social gathering supporters who’re very upset and outraged over what occurred previously few weeks.

“If 40,000 protesters or so can force the government to resign, then what happens if protests are held by the Awami League, which has millions of supporters?” he asserts.

Ms Hasina and her sister (Rehana Siddiq) have been stranded in Delhi since Monday.

India has been a robust supporter of the Bangladeshi chief.

There have been stories she is making an attempt to hunt asylum within the UK, the United Arab Emirates or Saudi Arabia.

“Those questions about her visa and asylum, they are all rumours,” her son says.

“She’s not applied anywhere. She’s staying put for the time being, watching how the situation unfolds in Bangladesh.

“Her ultimate goal is always to go back home in Bangladesh.”

Asked about well-documented human rights violations and extra-judicial killings throughout his mom’s 15-year tenure, he says some errors had been made.

“Of course, there were individuals in our government who made mistakes, but we always righted the ship,” he provides.

“We had one minister’s son, who was a member of the special police force. He is in jail convicted of extra-judicial killings. That’s unprecedented.”

“My mother tried to do the right thing in terms of arrests,” her son insists.