Sheikh Hasina should be extradited if India obeys extradition treaty: Bangladesh's law adviser

Law Adviser Asif Nazrul's comment came hours after Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal on Thursday issued arrest warrants against Hasina, who fled to India after being ousted following massive anti-government protests.

The tribunal directed the authorities to produce Hasina and 45 others charged along with her before it by November 18. Asif, while speaking to a news channel late on Thursday, said they will have many legal arrangements but "India is certainly bound to return Hasina (to Bangladesh) if India honestly interprets this."

Bangladesh and India already have an extradition treaty.

Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi on Thursday said: "As we said earlier, she had come here at a short notice for safety reasons, and she continues to be here." Hasina, 77, landed at the Hindon airbase near Delhi on August 5 as the protests, which started out as an agitation by students over a controversial quota for government jobs, peaked. She was believed to have been shifted later to an unspecified location, and has not been seen in public since then.

Nazrul had said at a media briefing last month that Bangladesh would formally seek the extradition of Hasina once the trial process began.

Meanwhile, a senior leader of Hasina's arch rival Bangladesh Nationalist Party's Senior Joint Secretary General Advocate Ruhul Kabir Rizvi said giving asylum to Hasina was like providing shelter to "a killer and a criminal. We have to bring her back through due diplomatic process." Hasina faces almost 200 cases, mostly murders during the student protests.