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Nearly 60,000 families remain stateless and live in camps across Bangladesh, mostly within Dhaka |
DHAKA — Thirty-six years after Bangladesh won independence, thousands of Urdu-speaking Biharis are still being treated as displaced Pakistanis and live in inhuman conditions in refugee camps, a story of woes that is as cruel as it is long.
"While we lived in Kolkata in West Bengal during 1947, the Hindus pinched us asking us to leave and telling us that Muslims made Pakistan as their own homeland," Muhammad Nuruzzaman, 81, recalls bitterly.
In the middle of 1948 a fierce riot erupted in Kolkata leaving so many Muslims dead and their bodies scattered in the city streets.
"Seeing this terrible scenario we fled from Kolkata to Dhaka," Nuruzzaman recounts his tragic story.
"Again in 1971, the liberation war started against Pakistani rule, we supported the Pakistani rule expressing the desire to save the integrity of Pakistan," he remembers.
"After 1971, the reign of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman stripped us of citizenship. In this way we lost our home, business, jobs," lamented Nuruzzaman, who has been living at Town Hall Camp, located in the Dhaka district of Mohammadpur, for the past 36 years.
"Now we are neither citizen of Bangladesh nor Pakistan."
In 1947, when the Indian sub-continent was divided into India and Pakistan Muslim Biharis, originally residents of the Indian state of Bihar, moved to what was then East Bengal (later East Pakistan and subsequently Bangladesh) after a series of communal violence.
They were considered refuges and given housing facilities with economic and social support.
In 1971, when war broke out between West Pakistan and East Pakistan, they sided with West Pakistan.
But when East Pakistan became Bangladesh, the Biharis were left behind as the Pakistani army and civilians evacuated.
Inhumane
In new-born Bangladesh, Biharis' homes and businesses were confiscated, they were fired from their jobs, their bank accounts seized, their children expelled from schools and they once more had to seek refuge.
In 1972, the International Committee of the Red Cross came forward and took care of them, providing shelter in concentrated camps in different areas of Bangladesh.
Between 1974 and 1982 about 15000 of them were repatriated to Pakistan.
Today, nearly 60,000 families remain stateless and live in camps across Bangladesh, mostly within Dhaka.
These camps are mainly located in Dhaka, Khulna, Chitagong, Pabna, Rangpur, Mymenshing, Bogra, Rajshahi, Jessore, Nilphamari, Lalmonirhat and other places in Bangladesh.
They live in utter misery with scarcity of drinking water and lack of electricity and sewerage facilities in congested and shabby housing facilities.
"Finding no other alternative, all the refugee camp dwellers are living in a little room measured 9 feet length by 7 feet wide," said M.A. Karim, in-charge of a camp at Shahjahan Road in Mohammadpur in Dhaka.
"A family of five or six people live in a such small room without all the civic amenities," he added.
Karim himself came from Gajipur district of Uttar Pradesh in India during the 1965 riot, in which Muslims were killed mercilessly.
The Stranded Pakistanis General Repatriation Committee (SPGRC) is asking the Dhaka government to resume the supply of food aid suspended since January 2004.
"The Ministry of Food and Disaster Management used to disburse to each Bihari 3 kilos of wheat every month," said Abdul Jabbar Khan, the SPGRC president.
"Now they are not getting any welfare services as the government is not cooperating and the camp committee has been compelled to stop its welfare activities."
Divided
Though united in misery, the Urdu-speaking Biharis are divided in their demands.
"We are stranded Pakistanis and our prime demand is to be repatriated to Pakistan with our whole family members without any delay," said Khan.
He urged the caretaker government of Bangladesh to take a decision.
Khan recalled that the SPGRC has since 1997 been constantly demanding both governments of Bangladesh and Pakistan for tripartite talks to resolve the issue amicably through dialogue.
The SPGRC president accused both governments of employing "the policy of delaying tactics".
The issue came high on the agenda of Bangladeshi and Pakistani foreign secretaries during a Dhaka meeting held on 29-30th August.
Pakistan Foreign Secretary Reaz Ahmad said Islamabad would look into the repatriation issue.
But not all Urdu-speaking Biharis see themselves as foreigners in Bangladesh.
"Many of us were born after the liberation of Bangladesh," said Sadaqat Khan Fakku, the president of the Standard Pakistanis Youth Rehabilitation Movement (SPYRM).
"So Bangladesh citizenship is our birthright."
The SPYRM has submitted a memorandum on the issue to the Dhaka government demanding citizenship and permanent rehabilitation in Bangladesh.
The UN High Commissioners for Refugees (UNHCR) also campaigns for the Urdu-speaking Biharis to be recognized as Bangladeshi citizens.
"We urge the Government to declare Urdu-speaking people as citizens of the country and include the eligible people in the voter list for ensuring their voting right," UNHCR representative Pia P. Phiri told a recent workshop in Dhaka.
"The issue is human, not political," says Abdur Rouf, a Bangladeshi.
"They are actually leading inhuman lives. This must be stopped."
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