DHAKA, Dec. 21, Reuter: A quarter of a million Biharis, who have waited over a decade in Bangladeshi camps for transfer to Pakistan, asked the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) today to recognize them as refugees.
Their leader, Mohammad Nasim Khan, told a press conference that the Biharis could get benefits similar to Kampuchean or Afghan refugees if the Geneva based organization granted them such a status.
He said the Bangladesh government was providing three Kg (Six pounds) of wheat to each adult a month, which he described as “less than a pittance.
The Biharis are Urdu speaking Moslems who fled from the Indian state of Bihar to Bengali speaking east Pakistan upon the partition of British India in 1947.
In 1971, when east Pakistan became the nation of Bangladesh afier a bloody war of independence, the Biharis opted to remain Pakistanis and demanded their transfer to Pakistan.
More than 170,000 of them have since been repatriated under a 1974 agreement between Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Pakistani President Zia ul Haq said he would admit the remaining 258,000 Biharis in phases after funds were found for their transfer and resettlement.
Khan said Iran had already offered planes to airlift what he called “the stranded Pakistanis”. He said a Jeddah based welfare organization, Rebetat E Alam EIslam, had agreed to finance their rehabilitation.
The British peer, Lord Ennals had announced that he had raised 278 million dollars for this purpose. “So where is the snag?” Khan asked.
Khan said last week’s rioting in Pakistan between Pashtuns and Moslems Mohajirs, in which 185 people were killed, might subverta repatriation plan. Mohajirs were originally refugees from elsewhere in British India in 1947.
Article extracted from this publication >> December 26, 1986
