THE ousted former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina said on Wednesday that she plans to return to her country from exile in India in December.

This comes despite Ms Hasina facing a death sentence in Bangladesh over a bloody crackdown on protesters in 2024.

In an audio address at an event in New Delhi marking the second anniversary of the uprising that toppled her government, Ms Hasina said: “I know that they may put me in jail, or they may kill me, or anything may happen, but still I have to go back.” 

The country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a statement late Wednesday said: “On a day when the people of Bangladesh are observing the second anniversary of the July Revolution, this interaction by Sheikh Hasina on Indian soil stands as an affront to the sovereignty of Bangladesh and a grievous insult to the martyrs of the July Revolution.”

Ms Hasina fled to India in 2024 after student-led protests forced her from power, and she has remained in exile there ever since.

In 2025, a Bangladeshi court sentenced her to death on charges of crimes against humanity for ordering a crackdown on the uprising. A United Nations report said nearly 1,400 people were killed in the crackdown. 

Ms Hasina denies any wrongdoing.