About the caretaker administration's restriction on Hasina's coming home, Law Adviser barrister Mainul Hosein last night said in case the AL chief returns, legal measures will have to be taken against her.

Talking to the BBC Bangla Service, he also said that the government has already requested different airlines not to carry her home.

"Though there are criminal cases against her, we don't want a leader of her stature to be in trouble," he observed.

Meantime, speaking to The Daily Star over telephone last night, Hasina's son Sajib Wazed Joy said, "She will return on April 23."

According to party sources, the former premier, now on a personal visit to the US, will fly to London this morning and there she will attend a number of programmes before leaving for Dhaka. She will take a British Airways flight.

For the first time anything like this is befalling the two battling parties that hold sway over about 75 percent of voters. What happens next to the organisations or their leaders with noses bloodied in the ongoing drive to purge politics of corruption is an open question.

The latest twist came only a day after two advisers--Mainul Hosein and MA Matin--had said that Hasina was free to fly in just as Khaleda, her match in politics, was to stay.

In a press note issued yesterday, the government said it has decided to take special cautionary steps regarding Hasina's return.

It held her responsible for the recent violent agitation on the streets leading up to declaration of the state of emergency.

Besides, during her stay overseas she has made inflammatory statements against the present administration and law enforcement agencies at several meetings and in national and international media of late, read the press note.

If she returns, she might seek to make provocative comments again and cause further hatred and confusion among the people. All this might disrupt the country's law and order and threaten the national security and economy, it adds.

The foreign, civil aviation and tourism ministries and the inspector general of police have been asked to take necessary steps in line with the government's decision.

The AL spanning 59 long years mostly on the streets seems to be in a quandary with its senior leaders completely clueless about the latest happenings.

"The government has just banned her from entering the country," AL General Secretary Abdul Jalil told The Daily Star last night. "I don't have any comment at this stage."

Some leaders think the fate of Hasina and Khaleda was a foregone conclusion from the moment the military-backed caretaker government took over. In fact, the so-called 'Minus Two' formula --politics without the two begums--so much speculated about for the last few months is now coming into play.

The speculation was buttressed by the law adviser's recent comment that the government is not interested in any election keeping the current political leadership in place.

"We want good new leadership to emerge instead of the old ones," Mainul said after a meeting with the chief election commissioner at the Election Commission Secretariat on April 4.

Speaking in return for anonymity, a senior BNP leader said, "If they [the two leaders] had committed any crime, they should have been tried here and sentenced. But what we are witnessing now is a completely new approach to democracy."

However, most of the leaders stayed mum on the popular talks on the streets that politics with these two leaders in their usual position has no future.

The BNP with a comfortable history of over 25 years, mostly in power with the aid of political remnants of other parties including the AL, is today panting in its sudden twilight existence. It too is short on answers to what the future holds for the party.

Khaleda has already packed her bags and is set to fly to Saudi Arabia apparently to 'perform Umrah'. Then she will stay back there without any fuss, and that is the arrangement thought to have been arranged by the powers that be.

She has already secured the release of her younger son, Arafat Rahman Coco, who was detained late Sunday night by the army-led joint forces. He is widely alleged to have been involved in massive corruption, keeping a low profile all along the tenure of the last BNP-led government.

Khaleda's daughter-in-law went to the Dhaka Central Jail yesterday to bid farewell to her husband, Tarique Rahman, who in the last five years had a meteoric rise in power and wealth through corrupt practices to become the icon of graft in Bangladesh.

The BNP chairperson wanted to take Tarique along with her, but so far the only concession she seems to have gained is a six-month stay on the proceedings of the extortion case against him, said a party insider.

On the other side of the aisle, AL leaders informed Hasina of the 'ban on her return' Tuesday night, much before the home ministry issued the press note. She was apparently shocked at the news as only on the 11th of this month she was told by the government not to cut short her visit.

She had planned to return on April 14 instead of last week of the month in response to an extortion case filed against her. But she changed her mind after being assured by the government that 'measures would be taken not to tarnish her honour and image'.

Hasina yesterday talked to her party colleagues over phone and asked them to discuss what steps to be taken next. Senior AL leaders including some presidium members met last night to take a stock of the situation.

One of them told The Daily Star that they feel that it has all come down to Hasina now to decide whether to face an uncertain future at home or stay back in the ease of her family's contact abroad.

The allegations brought against her in the press note are tantamount to sedition charges, the leaders fear. They now want to weigh how much the party can do to protest the government actions under the state of emergency. But they want to pursue on one point of the press note -- that the 'special cautionary measures' on Hasina's return is temporary.

The two leaders who held hatred for each other close to their heart and never exchanged so much as a word between them in the last 15 years now ironically share a similar fate. Options before them are not many--how they come out of it will be something to be followed with keen interest both nationally and internationally.

In another development, the British High Commission in Dhaka yesterday sought clarification from the government regarding restrictions imposed on the AL president's return to the country from the US, reports UNB.

"We're aware of the report and seeking clarification (from the authorities concerned)," a spokesperson for the high commission told the news agency last evening.