Bangladesh court seeks Interpol notice against Hasina niece amid new crackdown

A Dhaka court on Thursday ordered authorities to seek an Interpol red notice against British MP and former UK minister Tulip Siddiq on corruption charges — the latest escalation in Bangladesh’s sweeping legal and political campaign against figures linked to former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Siddiq, the niece of Hasina and Labour MP for Hampstead and Highgate in London, faces fresh allegations tied to a private real estate project in Dhaka’s upscale Gulshan area.

Bangladesh’s Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has accused Siddiq of using her proximity to Hasina to influence the allocation of land to a private company. Acting on a petition from the watchdog, Dhaka metropolitan senior special judge Mohammed Sabbir Faiz directed authorities to approach Interpol to issue a red notice to facilitate her arrest. The request was filed by ACC assistant director A.K.M Mortuza Ali Sagar.

Siddiq has already been sentenced to six years in jail in three separate corruption cases in Bangladesh — all linked to alleged dealings involving her aunt’s government. She has strongly denied the charges, previously calling the proceedings a “complete farce” and emphasising that she is a British citizen, not a Bangladeshi national.

There was no immediate response from Siddiq to Thursday’s order.

Her legal troubles follow a turbulent political transition in Bangladesh after Hasina was ousted in August 2024 by a student-led mass uprising that ended her 15-year rule. Since then, Hasina has been living in exile in India.

Siddiq had stepped down as the UK’s economic secretary to the treasury in January last year amid mounting scrutiny over her links to Hasina, despite maintaining she had been cleared of wrongdoing. At the time, she said her resignation was intended to prevent the issue from becoming “a distraction from the work of the government”.

Following Hasina’s removal, Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus assumed interim leadership before elections earlier this month brought Tarique Rahman — son of Hasina’s recently deceased longtime rival Khaleda Zia — to power. The pursuit of Siddiq now appears to be part of a broader effort to dismantle Hasina’s political network.

In a parallel development, Bangladesh police in the northwestern Rajshahi range have instructed officers to re-arrest leaders and activists of Hasina’s banned Awami League even if they secure bail — by implicating them in fresh cases.

According to orders issued by deputy inspector-general Mohammad Shahjahan, individuals from “banned or suspended fascist organisations” who could reorganise or revive political activity should be shown arrested in other cases after being granted bail. The directive, circulated to police units across eight districts, described the matter as “important”.

Newspaper reports citing the order said Shahjahan told officers that those capable of strengthening the banned party’s field-level presence must be detained again if necessary.

Speaking to reporters, Shahjahan said the order did not explicitly name any party. “We didn’t mention any specific political parties or organisations. As they’re already banned, we instructed our officials to nab or show them arrested in other cases if they try to destabilise the country again after getting bail,” he said.

The Awami League was disbanded last year by the Yunus-led interim government following the July Uprising that toppled Hasina’s administration. Since then, thousands of its leaders and workers have been jailed, while many others have gone into hiding at home and abroad.

In recent days, courts had begun granting bail to some detainees after the BNP-led government took office following February’s elections — prompting what appears to be a fresh administrative push to prevent their political re-emergence.

With PTI inputs