Sheikh Hasina: Inside her final hours as a hated autocrat

On Monday morning, sources said, Sheikh Hasina got in touch with government officials in Delhi to request sanctuary. The advice from India, a staunch ally throughout her long career, was for her to leave.

A day earlier, Washington had reportedly been telling Indian foreign ministry officials that time was up for Ms Hasina. She had run out of options.

But once she reluctantly agreed to sign documents relinquishing her post, there was still the question of how to get her out of the country safely.

A senior military official, who did not wish to be named, told BBC Bangla that only the Special Security Force, the Presidential Guard Regiment and some senior military officers at army headquarters knew when Sheikh Hasina signed the resignation letter and boarded the military helicopter that would fly her out of her residence. The whole thing was done quite secretly.

At about 10:30 local time (05:00GMT), the authorities shut down the internet so that no news about Sheikh Hasina’s movements could spread on social media.

It was only reactivated after she had made her getaway.

According to senior army sources, arrangements were put in place to get Sheikh Hasina to the airport safely. There were concerns her convoy might be attacked, so the entire route was cleared and the departure point secured. But in the end, it was not safe to take her by road, so a helicopter was used instead.

Right up to the moment of departure, Sheikh Hasina was reluctant to get on it, her son said.

“She wanted my aunt to leave,” her son said. “My mother did not want to get on the helicopter. I was on the call, persuading my mother, telling my aunt, both of them that she had to leave.”

Once they did, they were flown from Gono Bhaban to a waiting Bangladeshi Air Force C-130 Hercules aircraft that had been made ready.

Sajeeb Wazed Joy says he believes they went to Agartala, the capital of India’s eastern state of Tripura and were flown from there to Delhi. India had already been approached and agreed her transit via this route, officials said.

Other accounts say she was taken by helicopter to an airport in Dhaka, then by plane to Delhi.

Whichever route they took, at about 13:30 local time, Ms Hasina, her sister and a senior Awami League MP, Salman Fazlur Rahman, were transferred from the helicopter to the aircraft that took them to Delhi, officials said.

A video on social media showed four or five suitcases on the ground waiting to be loaded. Many of the things she left behind were being carted off by crowds who invaded her residence, even as she was still in the air.

Several hours later, the aircraft landed in Delhi, its passengers’ onward destination unclear.

Back in Dhaka, the internet was back on and all around Bangladesh, celebrations were breaking out marking the end of Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year rule.

A woman once viewed as a democrat but later reviled by many as a despot had fled like a fugitive under cover of internet darkness.