Sheikh Hasina to seek asylum in UK: Leaders who sought refuge there

Hasina might fly to Finland or the United Kingdom as New Delhi might not be keen to host her for long this time, unlike in 1975.

Bangladesh's ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina left Dhaka on a transport aircraft of Bangladesh Air Force and landed at the Indian Air Force (IAF) base at Hindon near New Delhi on Monday.

Sources told Deccan Herald that Hasina’s flight from Dhaka to New Delhi was coordinated by the security agencies of both India and Bangladesh. The IAF fighter jets escorted the Bangladesh Air Force’s C130J aircraft to Hindon after it entered the airspace of India.

She might fly to Finland or the United Kingdom as New Delhi might not be keen to host her for long this time, unlike in 1975 when she and her sister Sheikh Rehana had been secretly flown in from Berlin after the assassination of their father and founder of Bangladesh, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahaman, in Dhaka.

They had lived at a safe house of the intelligence agencies at Pandhara Road in New Delhi for six long years as the guests of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s government.

Hasina, 76, resigned and left her country earlier in the day amid mass protests against the ruling government.

She had over the past 16 years reversed the policy of the erstwhile BNP government led by Khaleda Zia in Dhaka to allow the insurgent outfits operating in the northeastern states of India to set up camps in Bangladesh.

Benazir Bhutto

Benazir Bhutto

Born on June 21, 1953, Benazir Bhutto was a Pakistani politician who served as the 11th (1988 to 1990) and 13th (1993 to 1996) prime minister of Pakistan. Her father Zulfikar Bhutto was a PPP leader but was assassinated in a military coup. Benazir and her mother took control of the PPP but she took a self-imposed exile in United Kingdom.

Nawaz Sharif

Nawaz Sharif

Nawaz Sharif served as the prime minister of Pakistan for three tenures. He was in UK since 2019 after a four-year self-imposed exile. He came to Pakistan on October 21, 2023, to kickstart his party's campaign.