Bangladesh ex-PM should ‘keep quiet’ until trial: Yunus

Dhaka  -  Bangladesh’s ousted premier Sheikh Hasina should “keep quiet” while exiled in India until she is brought home for trial, interim leader Muhammad Yunus told Indian media on Thursday. Hasina, 76, fled to India by helicopter one month ago as protesters marched on her palace in a dramatic end to her iron-fisted rule of 15 years. An interim government led by Nobel laureate Yunus has been under public pressure to demand her extradition and trial over the hundreds of demonstrators killed during the weeks of unrest that ultimately toppled her. “If India wants to keep her until the time Bangladesh wants her back, the condition would be that she has to keep quiet,” Yunus, 84, told the Press Trust of India news agency.  “Sitting in India, she is speaking and giving instructions. No one likes it. It’s not good for us or for India.” Hasina has remained in India, her former government’s biggest patron and benefactor, since her August 5 overthrow, inflaming tensions between the two South Asian neighbours.

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