Ousted PM to return to Bangladesh – Son reveals

Ousted Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will return home once elections are called, her son Sajib Wazed Joy said.

Ms Hasina, who resigned and fled the country earlier this week after massive riots, is currently in India.

Bangladeshi media reported that more than 500 people have been killed in weeks of protests against Ms Hasina, many of them shot by police.

Thousands of people have been injured in the worst violence in Bangladesh since its 1971 war of independence.

“Of course she will come (to Bangladesh),” Mr Wazed told the BBC, adding that his mother would also return if the interim government decided to hold elections.

A military-backed interim government led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus was sworn in on Thursday along with 16 advisers.

Two student protest leaders are among those being tortured.

Mr. Wazed is an Information Technology Professional currently residing in the United States.

He served as an IT adviser to Ms Hasina for several years during her tenure as prime minister from 2009 to 2024.

“She will definitely come back,” her son says.

“Whether she returns to politics or not, that decision has not been made. She is very fed up with the way she has been treated.”

The student-led movement began last month as a protest against limits on civil service positions, but after a brutal police crackdown it devolved into mass riots aimed at ousting Ms Hasina.

Mr Joy is confident that Ms Hasina’s Awami League party will win if the vote is held.

“I am confident that if elections are held in Bangladesh today and are free, fair and on a level playing field, the Awami League will win,” he said.

Mrs. Hasina became prime minister. Won a fourth term in a controversial election held in January 2024.

The main opposition party boycotted the election, saying there could be “no free and fair elections” under Hasina’s government.

Her son has declared the current interim government unconstitutional and said elections must be held within 90 days.

But he has been somewhat cautious about his political ambitions and whether he would return home to lead the Awami League, following in the footsteps of his grandfather and founding father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his wife Hasina.

“No decision has been made on this matter. I have no political ambitions whatsoever,” he says.

But he added that he was angry at the way protesters looted and burned ancestral homes, including a museum dedicated to his grandfather in Dhaka.

“I’m very angry in this situation. I’ll do anything,” he said.

He said he had been in contact with party supporters who were very angry and upset about what had happened in the past few weeks.

“If a protest of 40,000 people can force a government to resign, what would happen if the Awami League, with its millions of supporters, protested?” he argues.

Ms Hasina and her sister (Rehana Siddique) have been stuck in Delhi since Monday.

India has been strongly supporting the Bangladeshi leader.

There were reports that she was seeking asylum in the UK, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

“The questions about her visa and asylum are all just rumors,” her son says.

“She has not applied anywhere. She is staying where she is and watching how things unfold in Bangladesh.

“Her ultimate goal is always to return to Bangladesh.”

When asked about the well-documented human rights abuses and extrajudicial executions during his mother’s 15-year tenure, he said there had been mistakes.

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

“There was a son of a minister who was in the special police force. He was convicted of extrajudicial killing and is in prison. This is unprecedented.”

Her son insists “she was trying to do the right thing in terms of making the arrest.”