Bangladesh to seek Hasina's extradition at Dhaka talks with India on November 17-18

Bangladesh will ask India to extradite former prime minister Sheikh Hasina and her home minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal when officials of the two countries meet in Dhaka on November 17 and 18, The Daily Star reported, citing an unnamed official of Bangladesh's foreign ministry. The meeting, the fifth round of the India-Bangladesh Consular Dialogue, will take place less than four weeks before the Ganges water-sharing treaty between the two countries expires.

"At the consular dialogue, Dhaka will seek the extradition of political figures currently taking refuge in India, including Sheikh Hasina, Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal and the alleged killers of Sharif Osman Bin Hadi," the official told the Dhaka newspaper, which published the report on Friday.

What is on the table

The Indian delegation will be led by Esha Srivastava, joint secretary of the consular, passport and visa division of the Ministry of External Affairs, and Bangladesh's by Shah Asif Rahman, director general of the South Asia wing of its foreign ministry, The Daily Star reported. India proposed the November dates; Dhaka had asked for late October, but New Delhi preferred to wait until after Durga Puja, according to the report.

Besides extradition, Dhaka plans to raise border management, what it calls "push-ins" of people from India, visa services, the return of detained nationals and fishermen, a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, and renewal of the Revised Travel Arrangement, which has been extended every six months since it expired in 2023. India's priority is the repatriation of fishermen, and New Delhi has shared a draft protocol to speed this up, an official of the Indian High Commission told the paper.

All the sourcing in the report is anonymous, and neither government has announced the agenda. The Ministry of External Affairs has not commented on the extradition request.

Background

Ms Hasina has lived in India since she fled Dhaka during the uprising of August 2024. She and Mr Kamal were sentenced to death in absentia by Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal in November 2025 for crimes against humanity. Dhaka first asked for her return through a diplomatic note in December 2024 and repeated the request after the verdict. India has not acted on the requests.

The consular dialogue was set up in 2017; its last round was held in New Delhi in May 2024. The meeting is also being seen as groundwork for a possible visit to India by Prime Minister Tarique Rahman, which has been discussed for November but not announced.

The water deadline

Also hanging over relations is the Ganges Water Treaty, which governs how the river's dry-season flow at the Farakka barrage in Murshidabad is shared and expires on December 12, 2026, after 30 years. Bangladesh's water resources minister said last month that Dhaka wants a new or revised agreement with an explicit guarantee of its share, a clause that the 1996 treaty dropped. MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in September that technical-level meetings on the treaty "have continued to happen" under the Joint Rivers Commission.

Why it matters for Bengal

West Bengal shares a border of more than 2,200 km with Bangladesh, the longest of any Indian state. Push-backs, fishermen held at sea, visa delays and border fencing all play out first in Bengal's districts, while the Farakka barrage feeds the Hooghly and Kolkata port. The state government also had a say in the water treaty in 1996, when the then chief minister Jyoti Basu helped broker the deal.

What happens next

The talks are due on November 17 and 18 in Dhaka. Neither government has published a schedule for talks on the water treaty before it expires on December 12.