Muhammad Yunus Claims PM Modi Ignored Request to Restrain Hasina’s Political Messaging from Indian Soil

Bangladesh’s interim government chief, Muhammad Yunus, has alleged that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi dismissed his request to prevent former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina from making political statements while residing in India. Yunus made the claim during a public interaction at Chatham House on Wednesday.

Muhammad Yunus stated that he had raised the issue during a bilateral meeting with Modi on the sidelines of the BIMSTEC Summit held in Bangkok in April. “When I had a chance to talk to Prime Minister Modi, I simply said you want to host her, I cannot force you to abandon that policy. But please help us in making sure she doesn’t speak to Bangladeshi people the way she is doing,” said Yunus. “She announces on such and such day and at such and such hour she will speak, and the whole of Bangladesh gets very angry,” he added.

Responding to a follow-up question on whether India acted on the request, Yunus said, “No. Modi’s answer — and I quote — he said it is the social media, we cannot control it. What can you say? This is an explosive situation, you can’t just walk away by saying this is social media. This is what is still going on.”

There has been no immediate response from Indian officials regarding Yunus’s remarks.

Former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has been living in India since August last year after her government was toppled by widespread student-led protests. The current interim administration in Bangladesh issued an extradition request in December 2024, but New Delhi has yet to respond formally.

Muhammad Yunus reiterated that his government remains committed to pursuing Hasina’s extradition following her indictment by Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal. The tribunal recently charged her with ordering a violent crackdown on protestors in 2024.

“This will continue… another stage has come, now there is a case. The International Crimes Tribunal has started the trial process; they sent notices to Hasina for all the crimes she has committed… So, they have to respond to the notices,” he said. “This is a legal notice, so we have to go to Interpol and all the other things that happen through that. This is the process that we are following; we want it to be very legal, very proper,” he added.

Bangladesh’s Interim Government head also accused the Indian media of spreading misinformation that, according to him, is hindering efforts to build strong bilateral ties. “We want to build the best of relationships with India, it’s our neighbour. We don’t want to have any kind of basic problem with them. But somehow things go wrong every time because of all the fake news coming from the Indian press,”he said. “Many people say it has connections with policy-makers at the top and so on. This is what makes Bangladesh very jittery, very very angry. We try to get over this anger but… the whole barrage of things keep happening in cyberspace, we can’t get away from that,” Yunus added.

Relations between India and Bangladesh have deteriorated sharply since the caretaker government, led by Yunus, took charge in August 2024. New Delhi has criticised the interim regime for failing to curb religious extremism and for its alleged repression of minorities, accusations that Yunus has dismissed time and again.​