TDS Desk:

One month after her resignation and departure from Bangladesh, officials are still tight lipped.

The official version on 5 August was limited to only a few words– ‘Sheikh Hasina has resigned’.

Since then details were neither given to press nor to any other platform.

Bangabhaban only announced prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s resignation letter has been accepted.

found the answer about where she signed the resignation letter and whether she herself tendered the resignation letter to the president.

Answer to the second question is ‘NO’, highly placed sources said.

They said Sheikh Hasina neither visited Bangabhaban on that day nor submitted the resignation letter herself.

A top civil bureaucrat carried the resignation letter to the president at Bangabhaban.

Her rule for 15 and half years came to an end as the president put his signature with a note ‘accepted’.

It was not that easy.

The resignation came following a mass upsurge demanding her exit from power, a movement which had originally started for a quota reform to government jobs in early July.

As hundreds of protesters, many of them students and children, were killed since 16 July the movement took a turn to a one point demand of the resignation of Sheikh Hasina who had been in power since January 2009.

Her fourth straight term came to an abrupt end– only seven months after her ‘reelection’, participated only by her party, alliance partners and dummy candidates from her own party.

A decision by Bangladesh Army not to open fire on countrymen and stand beside people on 3 August ensued her exit within 48 hours, analysts said.

Concerned sources said that after a two-hour persuasion and heated debate at Gano Bhaban on 5 August, she finally signed the resignation letter at about 12:30pm.

Then she was escorted by elite SSF to a place near Gano Bhaban beside Bangabandhu International Conference Center. A copter was waiting beside a pile of bricks.

Sheikh Hasina along with her sister Sheikh Rehana boarded the helicopter with the entire area under full-proof security. They had four suitcases with them.

Internet was shut at that time and people were in the dark about what was going on.

From there, they were flown to Bangabandhu base of Air Force at Kurmitola beside Shahjalal International Airport.

Then they boarded a waiting C-130 transport aircraft and were flown to Agartala, India.

Once she reached India, her resignation was announced.