BD revokes Hasina’s diplomatic passport

DHAKA: Bangladesh’s interim government revoked the diplomatic passport of ousted premier Sheikh Hasina on Thursday, after she fled a student-led uprising by helicopter to India earlier this month.

The move to cancel Hasina’s documents leaves the former autocratic leader in potential limbo, and comes on the same day that a United Nations team arrived in Dhaka to assess whether to investigate alleged human rights violations.

More than 450 people were killed -- many by police fire -- during the weeks leading up to Hasina’s ouster, as crowds stormed her official residence in Dhaka and ended her iron-fisted 15-year rule.

The interior ministry said in a statement that Hasina’s passport and those belonging to former government ministers and ex-lawmakers no longer in their posts “have to be revoked”.

It also poses a diplomatic dilemma for Hasina’s current host, regional powerhouse India.

Hasina, who fled to an airbase near India’s capital New Delhi, was a close ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose Hindu-nationalist government preferred her over her rivals from the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which it saw as closer to conservative Islamist groups.