Bangladesh has made Prime Minister Tarique Rahman‘s travel to India conditional on New Delhi extraditing former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, the foreign ministry announced Sunday. Hasina, convicted of crimes against humanity by Bangladeshi courts, has been in India since fleeing the August 2024 uprising that dismantled her government.
India confirmed receiving the extradition request in November 2025 and says it remains under legal review. The 2013 bilateral extradition treaty contains a political-offence exception that gives New Delhi broad discretion to refuse — a clause now sitting at the centre of whether normal diplomacy can resume.
The India-Bangladesh Extradition Treaty entered into force on October 23, 2013. It was signed to target cross-border criminals and insurgents — the kind of threat both governments could agree on. Thirteen years later, it is being asked to adjudicate something closer to a political divorce.
On Sunday, Bangladesh’s foreign ministry announced that Prime Minister Tarique Rahman would not travel to India unless New Delhi returned Sheikh Hasina, the former premier who has lived in Indian exile since August 2024. The statement turned a legal request that India confirmed receiving in November 2025 into an explicit diplomatic precondition. The treaty’s political-offence exception — the clause that lets either country refuse extradition when proceedings appear politically motivated — is no longer a footnote. It is the entire question.
A treaty built for insurgents, now tested by a former premier
According to Bangladesh’s foreign ministry, official A.K.M. Shahidul Karim delivered the government’s position on Sunday. “We are of the view that a propitious environment needs to be created for the visit,” he said, dismissing reports that Rahman might travel to India within the week. Karim added that Bangladesh had pressed Indian officials to accelerate the extradition process for Hasina and other fugitives.
The demand lands on a treaty that was never designed for this. Signed on January 28, 2013 in Dhaka, the agreement was aimed at insurgents from India’s northeast who had found shelter across the border, and at criminals moving in both directions. Its architects were thinking about ULFA commanders, not former prime ministers.
India’s Ministry of External Affairs has kept its language consistent. Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal confirmed in November 2025 that the request had been received. “We have received that request, and the request is being examined,” he said. The formulation has not changed in the months since.
Sreeradha Datta, a senior fellow at the Vivekananda International Foundation, has written that applying the treaty to former leaders accused of crimes with political overtones raises complex questions about treaty interpretation and India’s regional security priorities. The treaty’s text gives New Delhi room. It permits refusal when an offence is considered “of a political character” or when surrender would be “unjust or oppressive.”
Parag Khanna, the geopolitical analyst and founder of FutureMap, has argued that India’s handling of high-profile extradition cases in South Asia reflects broader strategic calculations — balancing legal commitments with political stability and regional influence. Refusing politically sensitive extraditions, he notes, can strain trust with neighbouring governments.
Researchers at the Lowy Institute in Sydney stress that the treaty’s political-offence exception gives India broad discretion to decline extradition where proceedings may be seen as politically motivated. Legal provisions and strategic interests, they conclude, will both shape the outcome. The honest caveat is that the treaty’s text does not compel a decision in either direction. It permits one.
The mechanism that makes delay defensible
Extradition between India and Bangladesh runs through home ministries and justice departments, not foreign offices. Dhaka must submit detailed charges, conviction documents, and supporting evidence. New Delhi’s authorities then assess whether the offence qualifies, whether exceptions apply, and whether surrender would be unjust. Final decisions involve both legal review and cabinet-level discretion.
That structure means outcomes hinge on wider strategic and domestic political calculations, not purely judicial reasoning. The treaty can be terminated by either party with six months’ written notice. There is no indication either side intends to terminate the agreement, which remains the only formal extradition arrangement between them since Bangladesh’s independence in 1971.
Beyond India and Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan depend on Indian-Bangladeshi coordination over hydropower exports and regional grid links. Stalled talks in Delhi could slow their own electricity deals. Myanmar, already under Western sanctions, uses informal trade routes through both countries — a harder security line along shared borders could tighten scrutiny of cross-border flows.
The treaty was built for a relationship that had moved past its worst suspicions. It is now being tested by a moment in which those suspicions have returned. The next Indian foreign ministry briefing will signal whether New Delhi intends to move beyond formulaic language — or whether the standoff will persist into BRICS summit season, compressing the window for any bilateral reset.
Beyond the headline
The power behind it
The leverage in this dispute rests less in Bangladesh’s travel calendar than in India’s control over Hasina’s continued presence and political voice from its territory. By insisting on extradition before any prime-ministerial visit, Dhaka is trying to invert that asymmetry, making India’s handling of one exile the litmus test for resetting a broader relationship. New Delhi, meanwhile, can slow or shape the process without formally rejecting the treaty, preserving room for its own regional security priorities.
The timing
Bangladesh’s hardening line comes just as India is pushing to lock in an early bilateral visit by Rahman ahead of a crowded diplomatic season and critical decisions on water sharing, energy and trade. Hasina’s recent media interventions from New Delhi, timed around the anniversary of her flight from Dhaka, have injected domestic political pressure into that window. The result is a compressed timeframe in which both sides must decide whether to trade concessions on the extradition question for short-term normalisation or risk extended chill.
The regional split
For India, keeping Hasina on its soil while engaging Rahman’s government preserves options but deepens suspicion among Bangladeshi nationalists, who see extradition as a test of sovereignty. Other neighbours quietly diverge: smaller states reliant on Indian security guarantees prefer a quick reset that prioritises treaties on water and power, while actors wary of India’s dominance may welcome a prolonged rift that opens space for Chinese or Gulf mediation. That split over whether the standoff is a risk or an opportunity will shape how South Asian capitals read India’s next move.
The decisions that follow from a frozen relationship
With India’s legal review showing no sign of resolution and Bangladesh now tying diplomatic travel directly to extradition, four groups face concrete choices in the weeks ahead.
- Western investor with South Asia market exposure
Evaluate existing portfolio exposure to Indian and Bangladeshi assets for risks associated with geopolitical friction and delayed regional cooperation. The standoff could stall cross-border infrastructure projects and introduce uncertainty into trade flows. Monitor India’s Ministry of External Affairs briefings at mea.gov.in for any shift in language beyond “under examination.”
- International NGO worker focused on human rights in South Asia
Track India’s handling of the extradition request for its implications on international legal norms and due process. The political-offence exception gives New Delhi broad discretion, and how it exercises that discretion will signal whether judicial accountability or political calculation prevails. Analytical coverage from the Lowy Institute and Observer Research Foundation will help separate legal reasoning from strategic positioning.
- Western government official focused on South Asian security partnerships
Assess the potential impact of the India-Bangladesh standoff on regional security cooperation, particularly counter-terrorism efforts and Bay of Bengal corridor stability. A prolonged diplomatic chill could undermine Western-backed initiatives that assume a friendly Bangladesh on India’s eastern flank. Evaluate strategies to mitigate risks to existing partnerships while the extradition question remains unresolved.
- European or American energy firm operating in Bangladesh or India
Review project timelines, supply chain resilience, and regulatory compliance in both countries. Cross-border energy projects and power trade agreements depend on predictable bilateral relations. A frozen relationship could delay approvals, complicate financing, and shift the regulatory environment for foreign investment in the energy sector.
Explainer
- India-Bangladesh Extradition Treaty
- The bilateral extradition treaty signed on January 28, 2013 in Dhaka and effective from October 23, 2013, creating the first formal extradition arrangement between the two countries since Bangladesh’s independence in 1971. It covers offences punishable by at least one year’s imprisonment in both jurisdictions and allows either party to refuse extradition on political-offence or humanitarian grounds. Either country may terminate the agreement with six months’ written notice.
- Political-offence exception
- A provision in the 2013 India-Bangladesh Extradition Treaty that permits either country to refuse extradition if the requested offence is considered “of a political character” or if surrender would be “unjust or oppressive.” The clause also excludes political prisoners and asylum seekers from the treaty’s scope. It gives receiving states broad discretion to decline requests where proceedings may be seen as politically motivated, making it the central legal question in Hasina’s case.
- ULFA
- The United Liberation Front of Assam, an armed separatist group that has operated in India’s northeastern state of Assam since 1979, seeking an independent homeland. Its leaders, including Anup Chetia, sought shelter in Bangladesh for years before the 2013 extradition treaty created a legal pathway for their return. Chetia’s eventual transfer under the treaty remains the closest precedent for how politically sensitive extraditions between India and Bangladesh unfold.
- BRICS
- An intergovernmental grouping originally comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, which expanded in 2024 to include several new members. Bangladesh has been invited to participate in BRICS summits as a partner country. The upcoming summit season creates a diplomatic calendar pressure point — if Rahman’s India visit remains blocked by the extradition standoff, his attendance or absence at BRICS events will be read as a signal of how deep the freeze has become.
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