neighbouring India, where she fled in 2024. “Allowing the event to take place in the Indian capital and letting mass murderer Hasina openly deliver her hate speech … constitute a clear affront to the people and the government of Bangladesh,” the ministry said in a statement on Sunday, referring to the address — Hasina’s first since she was ousted.

Hasina, 78, has lived in exile in India since August 2024, when a student-led uprising ended her 15-year rule, which was marked by allegations of widespread human rights violations, including attacks, imprisonment and targeted killings of opposition figures, dissenters and critics. She was sentenced to death in absentia by a Dhaka court in November for incitement, issuing orders to kill, and failing to prevent atrocities during her government’s crackdown on the 2024 uprising, in which more than 1,400 people were killed.

In an audio address played on Friday to a packed Foreign Correspondents’ Club in New Delhi, Hasina accused Muhammad Yunus, head of Bangladesh’s interim government, of being a “murderous fascist” and said the country would “never experience free and fair elections” under his leadership. More than 100,000 people watched the address, which was broadcast online. Bangladesh is scheduled to hold its first general election since Hasina’s removal on February 12. Her Awami League party has been barred from participating after the Election Commission suspended its registration in May. The Foreign Ministry’s statement said Hasina “openly called for the removal” of the interim government and issued “blatant incitements to her party loyalists and the general public to carry out acts of terror” aimed at derailing the upcoming election. (Aljazeera)