Newsman: Daughter of the founding father of independent Bangladesh, the Prime Minister in exile told the’ Indian Express’ a prestigious newspaper in India, that given an opportunity her party Awami League will surely participate in the upcoming parliamentary elections in the country. In an exclusive e-mail interview, when asked on the involvement of a ‘foreign hand’ in her removal from power were sent to her, but she preferred to remain silent at this moment. But Sheikh Hasina leveled serious allegations against the chief of Bangladesh’s interim Dr Mohammad Yunus. How did he get so wealthy? She asked in the interview. The media must not give him a free pass just because he has famous friends, she emphasized.
Sheikh Hasina’s interview for the ‘Indian Express’ came just a couple of weeks later she gave an interview with ‘Reuter .‘
The Indian Express‘s Interview with Sheikh Hasina is as it is as published on Indian Express‘s online version 07 Nov 2025, 12:30 am, as follows:
Question: The Bangladeshi authorities have banned the Awami League from contesting the general elections early next year. Are your party members considering running as independents?
PM Hasina: The decision to ban the Awami League is deeply undemocratic and a clear violation of Bangladesh’s constitution and of the fundamental rights of the electorate. It short-changes millions of people. Historically, when parties have not participated in previous elections, Bangladeshi voters have simply not voted, rather than transfer their vote to other parties. So our priority is to continue fighting for the rights of our voters.
Question: If the Awami League and its members refuse to contest elections in any form, what do you think the impact will be for Bangladesh?
PM Hasina: We are not refusing to contest elections. On the contrary, we ardently wish to participate. But we have been banned from doing so by an administration that is itself unelected and which clearly has no respect for democracy.
We have to break this cycle of parties either boycotting elections or being banned, because it undermines the legitimacy of the government. Bangladesh badly needs to hold a free, fair and inclusive election, so that the country can begin to heal and move towards reconciliation. You cannot achieve this by banning the Awami League. We are woven into the country’s modern history and independence, and tens of millions support us.
Question: A report by the Human Rights Watch estimates that around 1,400 people were killed and thousands were injured during the anti-government protests between July 15 and August 5 over a year ago. The report says the vast majority were shot by Bangladesh’s security forces. As the Prime Minister at the time, do you take responsibility for the state-inflicted violence that led to your ouster?
PM Hasina: I mourn each and every life lost in the tragic violence of last summer’s uprising. As the country’s leader, I ultimately take leadership responsibility but the implication that I ordered or directed the actions of the security forces on the ground is fundamentally incorrect. All actions were taken in good faith and with the sole intention of minimizing the loss of life or the further breakdown in law and order.
As for the UN’s fatality estimate, we dispute that figure. It is significantly higher than the Ministry of Health’s own calculations and is based on undocumented and closely controlled evidence supplied to the UN Human Rights Commissioner by the interim government.
It also appears to contain many members of the security forces and Awami League officials killed in the riots, but that hasn’t been made clear. The government has had over 15 months to arrive at an accurate death count, yet has still not published a definitive list of the dead. I believe this is a deliberate omission and that it is using the UN’s back-of-the-envelope calculation for propaganda purposes.
Question: There have been questions around the integrity of several general elections in Bangladesh, including the ones that resulted in Awami League’s victories. Several opposition parties boycotted the 2024 general elections, after security forces arrested their members and supporters in thousands. The United States said it didn’t believe the 2024 general elections were free and fair, while the opposition BNP accused your government of rigging its outcome. Did the Awami League distort the political process in Bangladesh?
PM Hasina: The 2024 elections were deemed to be free and fair by independent international observers. This is not in question. The Awami League has come to power nine times through the direct votes of the people. The party has never seized power by unconstitutional means, unlike the so-called interim government presently in power, for whom no Bangladeshi has cast a vote.
Furthermore, it was the Awami League government that introduced key reforms to ensure transparency—photo-based voter lists, transparent ballot boxes, and the establishment of an independent Election Commission through legislation. These reforms were made to guarantee the people’s right to vote freely. Nobody doubts that the system had become much better since the undoubted electoral frauds of the 1970s through to 2001.
What I will freely say, however, is that some of our past elections were not truly participatory because major political parties chose to boycott democratic processes and deny the electorate their fundamental right to vote. I can see that, over time, this was damaging to our political process.
It is this cycle of non-participation that must now be broken. Whatever anybody’s views of the Awami League, the fact is that it has been a major political force in our country since Independence, is committed to upholding the Constitution, and is supported by millions. Bangladesh’s chances of forming a government that is legitimate and enjoys the genuine consent of the people are severely compromised if this ban on the Awami League is maintained.
That, by the way, is not just my opinion. An inclusive election for Bangladesh is the express recommendation of the UN and, I’m sure, is also the preferred outcome for the United States government.
Question : A recent Financial Times report quotes chief advisor Muhammad Yunus saying that an estimated $234 billion was plundered from Bangladesh during your 15-year Prime Ministership, with former land minister Saifuzzaman Chowdhury and S Alam Group chair Mohammed Saiful Alam helping move wealth abroad. The Bangladeshi Anti-Corruption Commission alleges that you unlawfully allocated government land to benefit individuals with personal or political ties to your family, and there is now a court trial against you, your son Sajeeb Wazed Joy, and daughter Saima Wazed Putul. How do you respond to corruption allegations against yourself, your family and political colleagues?
PM Hasina: These allegations are all completely un-evidenced, and formulated by prosecutors who are controlled by my political opponents. I’m not denying that corruption exists, but nobody has been able to show that my family and associates benefitted personally from state resources or were complicit in state-sanctioned corruption.
The $234-billion claim is laughable as well as un-evidenced. That sum far exceeds Bangladesh’s entire state budget. In practical terms, such an enormous theft isn’t even possible. If it had happened, our economy would have collapsed. What actually happened was that our economy grew by more than 450 per cent over my 15 years in office. And that, by the way, is a verified fact, endorsed by the IMF and other international organizations. My accusers seem to prefer wild allegations over facts.
Now, let me ask this: Muhammad Yunus has reportedly acquired around 4,080 kathas of land in Purbachal, where he established a resort under the name Nisorgo. He also purchased 300 kathas of land in Uttara, Dhaka.
Dr Yunus began his career at the Grameen Bank in 1990 with a salary of only 6,000 taka. How, then, did he amass such vast wealth? Today, he is said to hold fixed deposits worth approximately 5,000 crore taka across multiple accounts in different banks in Bangladesh. He hasn’t explained how this wealth was acquired, yet he’s the one in power now. The media needs to stop being naive and start scrutinising these matters, rather than giving Yunus a free pass just because he has got famous friends like the Clintons. (Former President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton.)
