From 18 October 2011 to mid-October 2014, Hashmi served as Pakistan's High Commissioner to Bangladesh, with concurrent accreditation to Bhutan. As high commissioner, he engaged with the Bangladeshi leadership and advocated greater people-to-people ties between the two countries to improve relations, while the Bangladeshi side called for resolving all outstanding issues from the past including a "formal apology" for 1971 to "enable the existing friendly relations between Bangladesh and Pakistan to make a great leap forward and create a wider space for cooperation". During his tenure in late 2013, diplomatic relations became strained when Bangladesh moved to convict and execute Jamaat-e-Islami leader Abdul Quader Molla on allegations of war crimes, a decision which was roundly condemned by Pakistan as "judicial murder". From October 2014 to April 2016, he took over as the Additional Foreign Secretary for Asia-Pacific in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.