Why Tarique Rahman still cannot come home after 17 years

For the first time in 17 years, the acting chairman of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), Tarique Rahman, has publicly admitted what many have long suspected: he desperately wants to return to Bangladesh to be at his critically ill mother’s bedside, but he cannot make that decision alone.

In an emotional Facebook post on Saturday morning, the London-based elder son of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia wrote: “In this moment of crisis, my longing to feel my mother’s affectionate touch is as intense as any child’s. Yet, I cannot unilaterally decide this matter.

Hours later, Press Secretary to Chief Adviser Dr. Muhammad Yunus, Shafiqul Alam, responded directly: the interim government has “no restrictions or objections whatsoever” to Tarique Rahman’s return.

On paper, the door is open. In reality, it remains firmly shut.

Khaleda Zia, 80, has been in the Coronary Care Unit (CCU) of Evercare Hospital since November 23 with a serious lung infection and multiple co-morbidities. BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir described her condition on Saturday evening as “critical.” A medical board that includes specialists from Johns Hopkins (USA) and London Clinic has advised that she is currently too unstable to be moved abroad for advanced treatment, though preparations—visas, air ambulance contracts—are already far advanced in case her condition stabilises.

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Against this backdrop, Tarique Rahman’s carefully worded statement and the government’s swift clarification have crystallised the central paradox of Bangladesh’s post-August 2024 political landscape: the legal and security obstacles that once prevented his return have either fallen away or been officially disowned, yet he still cannot come home.

So what exactly is stopping him?

Outstanding Criminal Cases and the Question of Arrest

Although the Yunus interim government has made no move to withdraw the dozens of cases filed against Tarique Rahman during the Awami League era—cases that include the 2004 21 August grenade attack, corruption, and money laundering—officials insist he would not be arrested upon arrival. The press secretary’s statement is the clearest public assurance yet. However, neither the caretaker administration nor the judiciary has formally quashed the convictions (including a 10-year sentence in one corruption case) or issued any safe-passage guarantee that would satisfy British authorities or, more importantly, Tarique Rahman’s own legal team.

The “Political Realities” He Dare Not Name

Tarique’s phrase “political realities” (রাজনৈতিক বাস্তবতা) is deliberately opaque, but Bangladeshi political circles interpret it the same way: elements within the security establishment, the student-military-civil society-jihadist coalition that forced Sheikh Hasina’s ouster, and even sections of the BNP’s own rank-and-file remain deeply hostile to his return. Memories of the 2001–2006 BNP-Jamaat government, the 1/11 military-backed caretaker intervention, and the perception that Tarique was the de facto power behind a notoriously corrupt and violent administration have not faded.

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Hardline anti-Hasina forces who view the BNP as yesterday’s authoritarian party fear that Tarique’s physical presence would instantly re-energise the old power structure and derail the reform agenda. Senior BNP leaders privately acknowledge that any attempt to bring him back without a broader political settlement could fracture the fragile post-Hasina consensus.

Personal Security Calculations

Living in London since 2008 under what he claims is de facto political asylum, Tarique Rahman has survived at least two known assassination attempts and carries the scars of the 2004 grenade attack that killed his mother’s political secretary and dozens of others. Returning to a Bangladesh where the army still wields enormous influence and where student activists who spearheaded the July–August uprising remain heavily armed and highly mobilised is, for his inner circle, an unacceptable risk without iron-clad guarantees.

The Mother-Son Dilemma as Political Theatre

Both the BNP and the interim government are acutely aware that Khaleda Zia’s illness is the one issue that can humanise Tarique in the eyes of ordinary Bangladeshis. The party has deliberately amplified the emotional angle—nationwide prayer sessions, appeals not to crowd the hospital—while simultaneously using her condition to pressure the government into concessions. Tarique’s Facebook post walks the same tightrope: a son’s anguish that also reminds the nation he is being kept away from a dying mother by forces beyond his control.

Yet the government’s response—warm words about Khaleda Zia’s treatment and zero restrictions on her son’s travel—effectively calls the BNP’s bluff. Should Tarique fail to board a flight in the upcoming days, the narrative of his “prevention” will crumble.

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Rumours swept London’s Bangladeshi community on Saturday that he had booked a Bangladesh Biman flight departing Sunday afternoon and arriving in Dhaka on Monday. By evening, UK BNP leaders were unable to confirm, and Biman’s London office declined to comment. As of this writing, no return appears imminent.

Seventeen years after he left on what was supposed to be temporary medical treatment, Tarique Rahman’s path home is technically clearer than it has ever been. But the legal ghosts of the Hasina era, the unresolved power equations of the new Bangladesh, and his own chequered legacy have combined to create a cage that no official statement alone can unlock.

For now, the acting chairman of Bangladesh’s largest opposition party can only watch his mother fight for her life from 5,000 miles away—free, in theory, to come home, yet still very much in exile.