Son says Hasina will return to Bangladesh

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fled after her 15-year rule ended abruptly

The ousted Bangladeshi Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, will return to the country when elections are declared, her son Sajeeb Wazed Joy says.

Ms Hasina, who resigned and fled the country earlier this week following a massive unrest, is currently in India.

Bangladeshi media say more than 500 people were killed in weeks of demonstrations against Ms Hasina. Many of them were shot by the police.

Thousands were injured in the worst violence Bangladesh has seen since its war of independence in 1971.

“Absolutely, she will come [to Bangladesh],” Mr Wazed tells the BBC, saying his mother will return as and when the interim government decides to hold the polls.

The military-backed interim government, headed by Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus, was sworn in on Thursday along with 16 advisers.

Two of the student protest leaders are among the advisers.

Mr Wazed is an information technology expert who now lives in the US.

He worked as an IT adviser for Ms Hasina for several years during her tenure as prime minister from 2009 to 2024.
“She will certainly go back,” her son says.
“Whether she comes back into politics or not, that decision has not been made. She is quite fed up with how she was treated.”
The student-led movement started as a protest against quotas in civil service jobs last month before becoming massive unrest to oust Ms Hasina following a brutal police crackdown.
Mr Joy is confident that when the polls are held, the Awami League, the party of Ms Hasina, will emerge victorious.
“I am convinced that If you have elections in Bangladesh today, and if they are free and fair and if there’s a level playing field, then the Awami League will win,” he says.
Ms Hasina became prime minister for a fourth consecutive term in a controversial election held in January 2024.

Sajeeb Wazed Joy served as a adviser to the prime minister on technology and has defended his mother’s record

The main opposition parties boycotted the election saying under Ms Hasina’s government there could not be “any free and fair election”.

Her son termed the current interim government as unconstitutional and said elections should be held within 90 days.

However, he was a bit circumspect about his political ambitions or whether he would return to the country to stand for the leadership of the Awami League, following in the footsteps of his grandfather, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding leader of Bangladesh, and Ms Hasina.

“No decision has been made in this regard. I never had political ambitions,” he says.

But he adds that he was upset over the way the protesters had ransacked and set fire to their ancestral homes, including the museum dedicated to his grandfather in Dhaka.

“Under these circumstances, I am quite angry, I will do whatever it takes,” he says.