Dhaka says it is ‘shocked’ the ousted leader was allowed to speak at a news conference, her first since the 2024 uprising.

Bangladesh’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs says it is “surprised and shocked” that fugitive former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has been allowed to make a public address in 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 about 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 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 an order to kill and inaction 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, the head of Bangladesh’s interim government, of being a “murderous fascist” and said Bangladesh would “never experience free and fair elections” under him. 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 is banned from participating in the vote 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” to derail the upcoming election.

The ministry added that her speech set a “dangerous precedent” that could “seriously impair bilateral relations” with India, which has so far ignored Bangladesh’s request to extradite Hasina.

Hasina’s address came as Bangladesh, home to 170 million people, gears up for the polls. The frontrunners are the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and a coalition of parties led by Jamaat-e-Islami, the Muslim-majority country’s largest Islamist party.