Stranded Pakistanis in Bangladesh
Stateless Biharis in Bangladesh NPR Worldview - Jerome McDonnell
Syed Kamal—President, Stateless People of Bangladesh,an organization that assists stateless Biharis in Pakistan trying to get citizenship in Pakistan or Bangladesh
When Bangladesh gained independence from Pakistan, the Bihari minority group wanted Pakistani citizenship. There are as many as 500,000 stateless Biharis. More than thirty years later, neither Pakistan nor Bangladesh will recognize them as citizens. This often means they can’t get jobs, travel, or access education. Syed Kamal is working to get citizenship and legal recognition for this community.
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May 30th, 2007 at 1:42 am
If all these several Bihari’s have spent several years not accepted in BD as Bengalis, just because they believed themselves to be rooted to Pakistan, then in all decency and InshaAllah , they need to be shipped over(ALL of them) to Balochistan, develop more cities beside Quetta and Gwadar, remain together and prosper in a land that is probably awaiting them. They are all as much humans as any of us Pakis, having an equal right to well-being, for perhaps more than we’ve ever done, and though they’ll have to switch from being labelled “Bihari” to “Balochi” they will at last and at least be in their homeland(a vast tract of fairly undeveloped land for lack of population!) However, they will have to work hard to begin with, but don’t we all, for starters???