Abandoned by their own government to exist in squalid camps in a hostile country, the quarter of a million Pakistanis stranded in Bangladesh for over three decades have lost all hopes. It is pathetic that the country that played host to some three million Afghans after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan has chosen to forget its own people who sacrificed to protect its integrity and sovereignty.
Wars and conflicts have displaced millions of people around the world, but those who flee such conflicts normally receive international attention and extensive media coverage.
Internecine fighting among Afghan groups or conflicts in the Horn of Africa have drawn world reaction with aid agencies and UNHCR scrambling to help them. In the case of the stranded Pakistanis, if anybody knows, nobody has bothered to help alleviate their sufferings.
They have been denied refugee status because they are not considered displaced people. The stranded Pakistanis, or Biharis as they are called, have waited long enough — more than three decades — for their country to acknowledge their sacrifices and patriotism. Some 600,000 Urdu speakers who supported the Pakistan Army during the war with India in 1971 were branded traitors by the Bengalis. The Pakistani Army laid down its arms and the Bengalis won an independent country.
The Biharis were rounded up, their houses, businesses and property confiscated. They were herded into makeshift camps where they have been confined for decades. They have suffered murder, rape and abuse at the hands of the Mukti Bahini, the Bangladeshi freedom fighters.
Most of the Biharis live in camps and struggle to make both ends meet. The meager quantity of wheat doled out to them by the International Committee of the Red Cross has been stopped recently, making life even more difficult for many of them.
Occasional high-level meetings between Pakistani and Bangladeshi leaders have turned a spotlight on the plight of these people but apart from the media raising the issue, nothing has been done for their repatriation and rehabilitation.
Loraine Mirza’s book “The Internment Camps of Bangladesh” details their miseries in an eloquent manner. Here are excerpts from the book.
“All I could think of as we walked out of the airport in Dhaka was how was I going to accomplish the purpose for which I had come. Shahid (her escort) and I were suddenly caught in a swarm of beggars, screaming, pulling on us, our clothes and our belongings. Worse, I didn’t know Bangla and was reluctant to speak Urdu. While many would understand Urdu, it was that language that was the center of this tragedy. So I stuck to English. The beggars became more persistent and I was having doubts if we would make it out of the airport. A young man came over and said very quietly in Urdu that we could make our escape in his rickshaw. There were other pedicab drivers, also competing for a chance to drive us, but for some reason, maybe because he had spoken so politely, I chose him. Shahid was insisting that we’d be better off taking a taxi, but I prevailed by dumping my bag and climbing into the rickshaw. Now Shahid jumped in.
“The driver guided the three-wheeled vehicle quickly toward the exit and as we sped off, I heard shouts from the other taxi and rickshaw drivers that sounded angry and seemed directed toward us. But we were well away from the airport, traveling along the widest road I had ever seen in Asia, when the driver turned to us and said in Urdu, ‘My name is Nurul Islam; they weren’t cursing at you but at me. I’m Bihari and we’re not supposed to pick up fares at the airport.’ Shahid had sent a telegram to the leadership of Geneva camp to expect us. But we never knew they’d send someone to meet our flight.
“Apparently Nurul had come especially for us. Nurul would not only be a source of transportation, but also my first teacher of what life was like for Biharis in Bangladesh. The first lesson was when we made three different stops in an attempt to get fuel for the rickshaw. Each time he rolled the sputtering pedicab into a gas station, he was refused service. Was there rationing? A fuel shortage? ‘No. Happens all the time’, he said. ‘Sometimes I have to go to many stations before I can find one who’ll sell me fuel. Then I pay double. And sometime I am refused everywhere and lose a day’s work.’ Then with a sigh he added, ‘And of course I have to push the rickshaw all the way back to the camp.’
“At the next gas station I took matters into my hands. Nurul spoke fluent Bangla and translated what I said to the man at the pump. I gave him the ‘I am an American tourist’, routine. With that, he finally agreed to fill the tank but not without a lecture about my choice of a Bihari rickshaw driver. We reached the Mohammedpur section of Dhaka. I saw fine, double-story homes and tall apartments. We turned a corner, entered a narrow alley and the world of those comfortable middle-class homes changed abruptly. Suddenly there was one shabby bamboo hut, squeezed against another: Geneva Camp No. 7, Mohammedpur, where 30,000 men, women and children are housed on a few acres of what was once a school playground.
“As we looked into some of the huts, each crammed with ten to fifteen people, a man rushed out of the doorway of his shelter. Suddenly his hands were reaching for my throat and as others pulled him back and held the violently struggling man, he screamed out. ‘Don’t bring any more Pakistani tourists here. We are not animals in a zoo to be watched.’ ‘She is a writer ... an American... a Muslim,’ came the shouts of others.
“There was mass confusion as the man shouted, ‘No more! No more!’ And others were shouting back, calling him crazy. More rational voices called out, ‘Why do you want to hurt her? She’s come to help us.’ The man stopped fighting and sank to his knees. He broke down sobbing. I am old and tired. I’ll die in this wretched camp.’”
This man’s attitude mirrored the ordeal of the quarter of a million stranded people left to die in internment camps. Three decades is a long time. Hundreds of thousands must have passed away during these years.
Their dream of returning to their country was never fulfilled. Now it is time the government of Pakistan and the international community played their roles in alleviating the miseries of these people. They have suffered long enough.