Time to leave: Hasina’s son convinced her to flee the country

On August 5 2024, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fled to India as the demonstrations grew bigger and bolder.

Ruling since 2009, her resignation was deemed as a major victory by the people of Bangladesh who, moments after she left, had barged into her palace.

And while the protests were happening for over a month, with over 300 killed while thousands injured and arrested, what really prompted Sheikh Hasina to escape?

The New York Times reports that until the final hours, Hasina firmly believed she could withstand the crowd gathering around her. Three sources familiar with the internal conversations disclosed that she ignored the suggestions of her security advisors, who had warned that their efforts to suppress anti-government protests had already been unsuccessful and that any additional action would lead to more violence and bloodshed.

Her top security advisors then resorted to her family in order to dispel Sheikh Hasina’s rigidity and make her realise that, “it was the end”.

The heads of army, police, air force, and navy came to her residence where she met with them alongside her sister, Sheikh Rehana, who had come from London just days earlier for a visit.

Her sister spoke to Hasina in private for about 20 minutes after which she was “quiet, but still reluctant”.

Army chief Gen. Waker-uz-Zaman, who is also a relative of Sheikh Hasina, then contacted her son, Sajeeb Wazed, living in Virginia, US, to urge him to persuade his mother to recognize the seriousness of the situation.

“She wanted to stay, she did not want to leave the country at all,” Mr. Wazed later told Indian news channels. “We were concerned for her physical safety first. So we persuaded her to leave.”

By then, the security personnel had estimated that Sheikh Hasina had less than an hour to leave.

“At very short notice, she requested approval to come for the moment to India,” India’s foreign minister, S. Jaishankar told the Indian Parliament.