India, Nov. 9 -- The "violent and extremist" policies of Bangladesh's interim government led by Muhammad Yunus are responsible for friction with India, and supporters of the Awami League will not vote in the upcoming election because of the ban on the party that violates the country's Constitution, former prime minister Sheikh Hasina has said. Hasina, who has lived in self-exile in India since the fall of her government in August 2024, said in emailed responses sent to HT late on Thursday that "Yunus' sponsorship of extremists in his government" threatens to undermine the fundamental relationship between Bangladesh and India. She said in the interview that she was "deeply grateful to the Indian people for providing me with a safe haven". India is and has always been Bangladesh's most important ally, and must remain so if Bangladesh's security and prosperity are to be maintained. If there is friction between India and Dr Yunus's unelected administration, that has nothing to do with me and everything to do with the chaotic, violent and extremist policies that are taking shape under Dr Yunus's rule. This includes physical and judicial attacks on religious minorities, retrograde social and religious policies, and even hostile rhetoric towards India from officials in Dhaka. I want to make clear that this kind of hostility does not sit comfortably with most Bangladeshis. The connections between our two countries are broad and deep. We pride ourselves on being India's reliable partner. Speaking personally, I must add that I am deeply grateful to the Indian people for providing me with a safe haven this past year. I categorically deny all charges brought against me. These charges have been brought by a kangaroo court that is controlled by my political opponents, who have seized power undemocratically. Remember, not a single Bangladeshi has ever had the chance to vote for this interim government. It has no genuine respect for accountability or due process. No persuasive evidence has been presented to support the claims that I ordered or directed the use of lethal force against crowds. Audio recordings and transcripts brought before the court have been manipulated and taken out of context. In a proper court of law, I would be able to challenge this phoney evidence. But no such court currently exists in Bangladesh. I'm not afraid to defend my record. I have repeatedly challenged the Yunus administration to bring these charges before a genuinely impartial tribunal, such as the International Criminal Court, where I could be tried fairly and with the right to mount a proper defence. The Yunus government will not do this, because it knows it cannot control proceedings and deliver the pre-ordained guilty verdict. There can be no hope for democracy when the country's oldest and most popular party is banned from participating. This ban is a violation of Bangladesh's Constitution, and of the fundamental democratic rights of Bangladesh's 173 million people. Millions of ordinary Bangladeshis will be disenfranchised if this ban is upheld. If they cannot vote for their preferred party, they will not vote at all. Bangladesh will have missed its chance to install a government genuinely ruling by consent. That would be a tragedy. As a party, we will continue to challenge this ban legally, diplomatically and peacefully to ensure that ordinary people retain their right to choose their representatives. The Awami League has come to power nine times through the direct votes of the people. The party has never seized power by unconstitutional or illegal means. In contrast, nobody has ever had the chance to cast a vote for Dr Yunus. This ban is not only unjust, it is self-defeating. It means that the next government will not have electoral legitimacy because millions of the electorate were effectively disenfranchised. Our principal hope for Bangladesh is that it returns to constitutional rule and political stability. The only way to deliver this is through free, fair and inclusive elections. The accusation that I was personally involved in the security response that led to the tragic loss of life is without foundation. These allegations have been brought against me by an unelected regime intent on silencing its main political opponent. To characterise the actions of security forces on the ground as direct orders from the government is a gross misrepresentation. Mistakes were certainly made by some members of the law enforcement in their handling of the violence. But to suggest that I was directing minute-by-minute tactical responses from the prime minister's office is to fundamentally misunderstand how security forces work. I repeat, at no point did I authorise security forces to fire on crowds. I regret each and every life lost in last summer's protests. The streets of Dhaka were lawless and violent, and our actions were intended to minimise loss of life, as well as protect the Constitution. In the days following the first deaths, we established an independent inquiry to look into the breakdown in law and order that had led to these tragic events. Yunus' administration dismantled this inquiry in its first days in power, which I regret deeply. It means that Bangladeshis, especially grieving families still don't have any reliable answers to their questions about those days. Instead, they have been fed invective and lurid accusations against my government. These accusations are intended to hurt the Awami League as a political force but have little relationship with the factual truth. Crimes against humanity must be tried fairly by an impartial, international tribunal like the ICC. The retaliatory violence targeting Awami League members and supporters, members of the judiciary, journalists and religious minorities has been widely reported in international media and criticised by numerous human rights organisations, and by the UN. Thousands of spurious cases against Awami League supporters have been filed. Hundreds have faced arbitrary detention on fabricated charges, and many of these have died in custody. According to Human Rights Watch, in the Yunus administration's first 100 days in power, more than 1,000 police cases were filed against tens of thousands of people with no legal basis. All of this is happening right now, under the administration currently in power. Yunus and his cronies are using their bogus prosecution of me to distract international attention from these abuses. That is why we need a fair and independent judicial body like the ICC to step in - to identify and verify present-day abuses and hold the Yunus regime accountable. During our time in power, we were proud of our commitment to upholding religious tolerance and secularism. It is deeply upsetting to see the values of our Constitution thoroughly undermined through brutal acts of religiously motivated persecution and violence. The wave of religious violence that tore through our country in the first weeks of Yunus' rule was disgraceful. So too is Yunus' consistent denial of the violence that still targets Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, indigenous communities and other minority religious groups to this day. Bangladesh has always been a haven for people escaping persecution, that is why we welcomed, supported and protected thousands of Rohingya refugees fleeing civil war in Myanmar. All this now hangs in the balance in the face of rising extremism and sectarian violence in day-to-day life. Dr Yunus began his career at Grameen Bank in 1990 with a salary of only 6,000 taka. How then did he amass such vast wealth? Where did the large sums donated to the Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton's campaign come from? Today, he is said to hold fixed deposits worth approximately 5,000 crore taka across multiple accounts in different banks in Bangladesh. There's also a tax evasion case against him. We worked hard to contain extremist forces during our time in office and to ensure that all citizens, no matter their religion, were free and safe to live their lives as they chose. These values were enshrined in our Constitution. Today, the streets of Dhaka are no longer safe and millions of ordinary Bangladeshis live in fear of leaving their homes. We have already seen the spread of radical Islamist ideology across our country, whether in the form of physical violence against minority religious groups or members of the Awami League, or in the repression and exclusion of women and girls from public life. India has always been a steadfast ally and friend to Bangladesh. But today's chaos and degraded decision-making are not what India expects from us. Yunus' sponsorship of extremists in his government undoubtedly threatens to undermine that fundamental relationship, to the detriment of both our nations. It is no secret that our once high-growth economy is floundering under the interim government. Indeed, the IMF has downgraded Bangladesh multiple times in the past year. We set Bangladesh on course to graduate from LDC level, and it is disheartening to see the economic progress we achieved threatened in this way. What we achieved in the past two decades was remarkable: We saw our economy grow by over 450%, delivered major infrastructure projects, expanded access to electricity, and provided employment opportunities for millions of people. Improved trade and transit with India was of course a vital part of that growth, and deepened the partnership between our countries. That progress was hard-won. So it breaks my heart to see key development initiatives delayed and the relationship between our countries strained by short-sighted policy shifts and what appear to be profound realignments in Bangladesh's foreign policy....