Sheikh Hasina: A critical misstep and the end of 15 years ruling Bangladesh

Following weeks of protests, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned on Monday and fled the country.

Dhaka, Bangladesh – It all began with a single word: “Razakar“.

In Bangladesh, “Razakar” is a highly offensive term. The word means volunteers but it refers to those who supported the Pakistani military’s operation to quell the 1971 Bangladesh liberation war and were accused of heinous crimes.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, 76, who resigned and fled the country in an army helicopter on Monday amid widespread unrest, has been known for using this term to label anyone she perceived as a threat or dissenter during her more than 15 years in power.

The daughter of the country’s founding father and former President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Hasina was the leader of a pro-democracy uprising that toppled military ruler and then-President Hossain Mohammad Ershad from power in 1990.

Hasina first became prime minister after her Awami League party won the elections in 1996. She came to power again in 2009, helping to achieve impressive economic growth, while growing increasingly autocratic, cracking down on free speech, dissent and opposition in Bangladesh, a country of 170 million and the world’s eighth-most populated.

Hasina’s tenure as the longest-serving female head of government in Bangladesh was marked by the use of security forces, including the notorious Rapid Action Battalion paramilitary, which she was accused of using to abduct and even kill opposition members and dissenters, and allegedly rig the elections.

Even the judiciary, a largely bipartisan institution, became compromised during her tenure according to critics, forcing a chief justice to flee the country after he opposed her in a ruling.

Then there was the mainstream