The latest decision implies that the diplomatic passport that the deposed Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina used while fleeing to India has now been revoked. File.
| Photo Credit: AP

The interim government of Bangladesh has decided to revoke all diplomatic passports issued to the Members of Parliament who served during the Awami League government, the security branch of the Home Ministry of Bangladesh said on Wednesday evening. The decision implies that the diplomatic passport that the deposed Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina used while fleeing to India has now been revoked. 

“The security service of the Home Ministry has taken this decision after consulting all stakeholders and has already alerted all emigration counters of the country,” the Home Ministry said in a statement shared with the media here.

A formal order will be issued “at the earliest”, the notification said. Ms. Hasina had won from the Gopalganj-3 constituency to enter the Jatiyo Sansad in the January election as a re-elected MP.

Also read | Bangladesh’s student movement and Hasina’s exit: the hard truth and India’s hour of reckoning

The decision taken two weeks after the formation of the interim government has highlighted the antipathy that the interim administration and the student leaders have been expressing over the presence of Ms. Hasina in India. Ms. Hasina and her sister Sheikh Rehana left Bangladesh on August 5 as protesters flooded Dhaka.

The Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi has been tight-lipped about the diplomatic status that Ms. Hasina used to seek refuge in India though it is understood that as the Prime Minister of Bangladesh she had a diplomatic passport that she used while leaving for India.