Bangladesh plans to execute its former leader. There’s one big thing in the way:. She was once cast as a secular heroine, the daughter of a revolutionary leader, whose brutal assassination in the 1970s defined her political ascent. But Sheikh Hasina’s rise to the top of Bangladesh’s politics preceded a stunning fall from power to self-exile in India. A death sentence delivered in absentia could now see her executed – if New Delhi decides to send her back. The ousted leader was found guilty of crimes against humanity for the violent suppression of student protests that toppled her regime in 2024. She fled to India last August after 15 years of increasingly authoritarian rule, seeking refuge in the capital of one of her closest allies. Now she’s become a pawn in a tense standoff between the two countries as Dhaka demands her extradition to face justice for crimes that she insists she did not commit. “She had to flee the country to flee the rage of the people,” said Bangladeshi political scientist Mubashar Hasan. “Hiding in India and handed down a death penalty. It’s quite an extraordinary story.” Hasina’s political journey is a story of Shakespearean proportions – a saga of tragedy, exile and power inextricably linked to the history of her home country. The eldest daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the charismatic “Father of the Nation,” she was thrust into politics early in life as she witnessed Bangladesh’s struggle for autonomy from Pakistan. But it was a single, bloody night in August 1975 that truly forged her path. In a brutal military coup, army officers assassinated her father, her mother, and three of her brothers in their Dhaka home. Hasina and her sister survived as they were visiting West Germany at the time. In the chaotic aftermath, Gen. Ziaur Rahman – the husband of her future arch-nemesis, Khaleda Zia – rose to power, his regime passing a law that would protect Mujibur’s assassins for decades. Overnight, Hasina’s life was transformed, and she was forced into six years of exile in India, which imprinted a deep respect for the Indian state on the future leader. When she finally returned to Bangladesh in 1981, it was to a nation clamoring for its founding ideals of secularism. But she also entered a political arena about to be defined by another woman pushed into tragedy: Zia, whose husband had himself been assassinated. Recalling the day of her return from forced exile, Hasina said: “When I landed at the airport, I didn’t get anyone of my (relatives) but received love of millions of people, and that was my only strength.” Thus began the era of the “Battling Begums” – a deeply personal, yet destructive duel between two women that would grip Bangladesh for the next 30 years. Taking the helm of her father’s Awami League, Hasina embarked on a long journey through the political wilderness, navigating house arrests and crackdowns amid a growing rivalry with Zia. In 1996, Hasina led her party to electoral victory, becoming Prime Minister for the first time. Her first act in office was to announce the prosecution of those involved in the 1975 coup and murders of her family, finally beginning a quest for justice.