Exiled Bangladesh PM Hasina vows return despite death sentence, sparking diplomatic fury

From a guarded refuge in India, 78-year-old former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has declared her intention to return home despite a death sentence for crimes against humanity — a conviction tied to the killing of up to 1,400 people during her final months in power. Her words, broadcast to a New Delhi press club, have sharpened an already fraught diplomatic standoff between India and Bangladesh, where her presence is seen not merely as a legal matter but as a wound that has not yet closed. In the long arc of postcolonial governance, her defiance raises an enduring question: when doe