JEDDAH, 21 June — The Pakistan Repatriation Council (PRC) organized a reception at Sofitel Hotel on Wednesday in honor of Dr. Francis Lamand, a renowned lawyer and president of Islam and the West.

Speakers on the occasion raised the issue of the stranded Pakistanis and called upon the government of Pakistan to take the stranded people back who have been languishing in 66 camps across Bangladesh for the past 31 years.

Dr. Lamand stressed that the issue be taken up by both Pakistan and Bangladesh on humanitarian grounds and resolved without any delay. He said some percentage of the new generation of stranded Pakistanis may want to live in Bangladesh and they should be provided the opportunity by the Bangladesh government to settle down there, but for most of the people who want to come to Pakistan, Islamabad should make arrangements. He said the formation of the Rabita Trust by Pakistan testifies to the fact that the people stranded in Bangladesh are Pakistanis. Dr Lamand said he and the former secretary-general of Muslim World League Dr. Abdullah Omar Naseef visited the director of UNHCR to pursue the case for granting refugee status to the stranded Pakistanis.

He said that the PRC self-finance proposal for the repatriation and rehabilitation of stranded Pakistanis should be considered by the government in Islamabad.

Dr. Khaled Batarfi, the managing editor of Al-Madina, appreciated the role played by Dr. Lamand in projecting Islam in the West. He hoped that Pakistan will be able to solve the issue with the help of Muslim World League.

Ehsanul Haque, convener of the PRC, appealed to President Gen. Pervez Musharraf to consider the PRC proposal and review its feasibility. He thanked the president of the Islamic Development Bank Ahmad Mohammad Ali for sending 5,000 carcasses of slaughtered goats to Bangladesh for distribution among stranded Pakistanis. He said that “our brothers in Saudi Arabia are extending all-out support to the stranded Pakistanis, but unfortunately our leaders, politicians, charitable organizations and parties have ignored them totally.”