JEDDAH, 19 February 2007 — The plight of the stranded Pakistanis living in 66 camps across Bangladesh was discussed at an emergency meeting of the Pakistan Repatriation Council held here on Saturday night.
Some 100 families were left homeless after fire gutted 100 shanties at two camps during the past two weeks. The fire incidents at a camp in Chittagong on Feb. 4 and at the Geneva Camp in Dhaka on Feb. 13 left several women and children injured.
The meeting, presided over by Akhtar Siddiqui, urged Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf and his Bangladeshi counterpart to provide security to the quarter of a million Pakistanis living in Bangladesh.
A resolution adopted at the meeting demanded the reactivation of the Rabita Trust for the repatriation of stranded Pakistanis in accordance with PRC’s self-finance proposal.
PRC Convener Ehsanul Haque said former Sen. Jamiluddin Aali had written a letter to Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Feb. 15 drawing his attention to the plight of stranded Pakistanis and seeking his intervention for the resolution of the issue.
