India has said it cannot give a fixed timeline for a decision on Bangladesh’s request to extradite former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. The matter is going through a legal process, officials said.

Indian High Commissioner to Bangladesh Dinesh Trivedi spoke at the Bay of Bengal Conversation in Dhaka on October 3. He said the request was being examined through a structured legal process and the courts were involved. “Nobody can give you a timeframe,” he said.

Bangladesh wants faster action. State Minister for Foreign Affairs Shama Obaed Islam said on October 5 that completing the legal steps would also need political will from New Delhi. She said the existing extradition treaty between the two countries could be used for Hasina’s return.

Hasina, 79, has been in India since August 5, 2024. She left Bangladesh after her government collapsed amid mass protests. Trivedi said she arrived on a Bangladesh Air Force aircraft and that India had little choice but to accept her since she was still the prime minister then. The extradition treaty was signed in 2013 and amended in 2016.