Months before her tragic fall as the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina had claimed that “conspiracies” were being hatched to topple her government and that she may be assassinated just like her father and independence hero Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
She had also alleged a “white man’s” plot to carve a new “Christian country” out of Bangladesh and Myanmar.
Ms Hasina had said she was offered an easy re-election in January – which she anyway achieved in a one-side election boycotted by her arch-rival Khaleda Zia’s party. The condition was that she had to allow a foreign country build an airbase in Bangladesh, she claimed, suggesting this was why her government had always been in trouble.
“If I allowed a certain country to build an airbase in Bangladesh, then I would have had no problem,” she had said in May. The offer came from a “white man”, she said, but fell short of naming any country. “It may appear it is aimed at only one country, but it is not. I know where else they intend to go.”
“There will be more trouble,” she had warned.
Ms Hasina resigned and fled Bangladesh amid deadly protests yesterday as the country’s military took over.
On her claim that many foreigners had their eyes on Bangladesh, she had said, “Like East Timor…they will carve out a Christian country, taking parts of Bangladesh (Chattogram) and Myanmar with a base in the Bay of Bengal.”
However, she had vowed not to bow down to any pressure.
Bangladesh saw one of its deadliest demonstrations on Sunday with over 100 protesters dying in clashes with cops. The total deaths since the beginning of the protests have crossed 400.
The protesters breached the Prime Minister’s residence on Monday, but Ms Hasina avoided a direct confrontation, having already resigned and fled the country in a military plane.
The country’s army chief called a press conference hours later and declared an interim government would be formed to run the country.
Later in the day, Ms Hasina landed at the Hindon Air Force base in India – about 30 km from capital Delhi. She is likely to leave for London where she may seek asylum, sources told NDTV.
