Sheikh Hasina 'to return to Bangladesh' once interim govt announces election

• Not clear whether Sheikh Hasina will compete in elections.
• Hasina's Awami League party doesn't feature in interim govt.
  
• She is sheltering in safe house in India's New Delhi area.
  

Sheikh Hasina, the ousted prime minister of Bangladesh, has not bid goodbye to her home country just yet as the Awami League party supremo will return.

Hasina's son and Awami League party leader Sajeeb Wazed Joy confirmed that his mother will come back to Bangladesh when its new caretaker government decides to hold elections, Reuters reported.

The 76-year-old former prime minister of Bangladesh fled to neighbouring India earlier this week after weeks of deadly protests forced her to quit. 

A caretaker government led by Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus was sworn in on Thursday, which will be tasked with holding elections.

"For the time being, she (Hasina) is in India. She will go back to Bangladesh the moment the interim government decides to hold an election," Joy told the Times of India.

However, he did not specify whether Hasina will contest elections. 

"My mother would have retired from politics after the current term," Joy said.

"I never had any political ambition and was settled in the US. But the developments in the Bangladesh in the past few days show that there is a leadership vacuum. I had to get active for the sake of the party and I am at the forefront now," he told the newspaper.

Hasina's Awami League party does not feature in the interim government, following a student-led uprising against the long-time former prime minister whose exit came after nationwide violence killed over 400 people and injured thousands.

She is sheltering in a safe house in the New Delhi area. Indian media has reported that she plans to seek asylum in Britain, but the British Home Office has declined to comment.

India's foreign minister said on Thursday he spoke to his British counterpart about Bangladesh, but did not share any details.