New Delhi: The new Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) government in Dhaka has renewed its request for the extradition of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina during the first bilateral visit by a Bangladeshi foreign minister since the elected administration took office in February.Bangladesh foreign minister Khalilur Rahman met external affairs minister S. Jaishankar in New Delhi on Wednesday (April 8), marking the highest-level bilateral contact between the two sides since Tarique Rahman’s BNP secured a landslide victory in the February 12 parliamentary elections.The Dhaka readout quoted Rahman as telling Jaishankar that ‘Bangladesh First’ – Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s signature election campaign formulation – will guide the new government’s foreign policy, based on “mutual trust and respect and reciprocal benefit”.According to the Bangladesh foreign ministry’s statement, the delegation “reiterated its request to extradite Sheikh Hasina and her Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal to Bangladesh”.Both were sentenced to death in absentia by Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal in November last year for crimes against humanity.India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) issued a brief statement on the Jaishankar-Rahman meeting that made no reference to the extradition request or other specific matters. It said Jaishankar “reiterated India’s desire to engage constructively with the new Government and further strengthen bilateral ties” and added that “both sides agreed to explore proposals for deepening the partnership through the relevant bilateral mechanisms”.The Bangladesh readout was more detailed, referring to discussions on diesel supply, visa facilitation, the transfer of suspects in the Sharif Osman Hadi murder case, and consultations on bilateral issues.The visit was the first by a senior BNP government official to New Delhi since the party assumed office. Rahman, who served as national security adviser under the Muhammad Yunus-led interim administration in Dhaka and was notably retained in the Tarique Rahman government, was accompanied by Humayun Kabir, adviser to the prime minister on foreign affairs.The delegation met national security adviser Ajit Doval on Tuesday evening after arriving in New Delhi, and petroleum and natural gas minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Wednesday.As a timeframe for elections became clear late last year and the BNP was positioned as the frontrunner, Jaishankar had visited the Dhaka funeral of former prime minister and Tarique Rahman’s mother Khaleda Zia, where he also met Tarique, signalling New Delhi’s willingness to cultivate cordial ties with the future government. Jaishankar had chosen not to meet then-chief adviser Yunus, with whose interim administration ties had soured.Later, Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla and foreign secretary Vikram Misri travelled to Dhaka for Tarique Rahman’s swearing-in ceremony.The extradition request for Hasina has now been formally pursued by two successive governments in Dhaka. The interim administration led by Yunus sent the first note verbale to India’s MEA in December 2024, seeking her return for judicial proceedings.After the tribunal’s death sentence verdict on November 17, 2025, Dhaka sent a second formal request on November 21, citing the tribunal’s findings on the July-to-August 2024 crackdown in which an estimated 1,400 people were killed.Responding to that request in November 2025, the MEA spokesperson said it was “being examined as part of ongoing judicial and internal legal processes”.Hasina fled Bangladesh on August 5, 2024 by military plane after her government was toppled by a student-led uprising. She has remained at an undisclosed location in India, from where she has given interviews and issued statements, something successive governments in Dhaka have described as a continuing irritant in bilateral ties.Bangladesh’s request rests on a 2013 bilateral extradition treaty signed when Hasina was prime minister. Under its provisions, India can refuse extradition if it determines the offence is political in nature.The Bangladesh side also reported convergence on the return of suspects in the killing of Hadi, a 32-year-old leader of the 2024 student uprising who was shot dead in Dhaka in December last year.The killing of Hadi, who had been an outspoken critic of India’s role in Bangladeshi politics, set off violent protests across Bangladesh that took a sharply anti-India turn. Protesters attacked the offices of two major newspapers, the Daily Star and Prothom Alo, which demonstrators accused of being sympathetic to India.Crowds also marched towards the Indian high commission in Dhaka. India suspended visa services at its missions in Rajshahi and Khulna and temporarily in Dhaka, and summoned Bangladesh’s high commissioner to New Delhi twice within a fortnight of the killing.Two Bangladeshi nationals, Faisal Karim Masud and Alamgir Hossain, were arrested in Bongaon, West Bengal, and brought to New Delhi, where a court granted the National Investigation Agency custody in the Hadi murder case.Rahman thanked India for “apprehending the suspected killers of Shaheed Osman Hadi,” the Bangladesh foreign ministry said, adding that both sides agreed the accused would be returned “in accordance with the procedures laid out in the extradition treaty between the two countries”.India had suspended visa services in the aftermath of the toppling of the Hasina government in August 2024. Though partial services were restored later, daily issuance dropped sharply. The Bangladesh readout said Jaishankar told the delegation that visas for Bangladeshis, particularly for medical and business purposes, would be eased in the coming weeks.During his meeting with Puri, Rahman also sought higher supplies of diesel and fertiliser from India.The India-Bangladesh Friendship Pipeline, a 131-kilometre cross-border project connecting India’s Numaligarh refinery in Assam to Bangladesh’s Parbatipur depot in Dinajpur, was inaugurated by Modi and Hasina in March 2023.Bangladesh is entitled to up to 180,000 tonnes of diesel annually under the bilateral agreement. This month India will be sending 20,000 tonnes of diesel, just as Bangladesh was facing an energy shortage, largely due to panic buying in view of the Iran war. The Bangladesh readout said Puri indicated India “will consider the request readily and favourably”.