Pakistan’s parties asked to act on Bihari issue

The Pakistan Repatriation Council (PRC) made an appeal to all the political parties of Pakistan to start welfare activities for stranded Pakistanis in Bangladeshi camps.
PRC Convener Ehsanul Haque asked President Asif Ali Zardari to reactivate the Rabita Trust — frozen since October 2001 — and restart the process of repatriation and rehabilitation.
He praised Majeed Nizami, the editor in chief of Nawai Waqt, an Urdu daily, for taking initiative to create fund for the stranded Pakistanis.
PRC passed resolutions that condemned Bangladesh for creating a War Tribunal, which it said, was purely for political purposes.
Earlier, Abdullah Omar Al-Nasseef, the former vice president of Shoura Council, congratulated the Pakistani expatriates on Pakistan Day.
The event marks the Lahore Resolution of March 23, 1940 — a landmark decision by the Pakistan Muslim League that heralded the movement in the undivided India to carve out a separate land in the name of Pakistan. Citizens of Pakistan consider the Lahore Resolution a major milestone in the struggle for the independence of Pakistan.
Naseef, who was conferred with the Hilal-e-Pakistan, the highest civilian award of the country, reserved his presidential remark to rake up the issue of those hapless Pakistanis who are languishing in Bangladesh since 1971 war and to whom the government Pakistan is yet to take a decision to take them back to Pakistan even after four decades.
The former secretary general of the Muslim World League took the occasion to express his concerns about War Crime Tribunal in Bangladesh in which, he said is targeting the leaders of the country.
Prominent people like Sardar Rahmat Khan of Kashmir Committee; Iftikhar Choudhry of Engineers Forum; Mohammad Nawaz Janjua, press secretary of Pakistan Welfare Society; and Tyyab Mousani, general secretary of Memon Welfare Society took the occasion to remember the Quaid-e-Azam M. A. Jinnah and praise the PRC for keeping alive the issue of stranded Pakistanis. They also paid tributes to Abdullah Naseef for serving the Muslim Ummah in general.
Hamid Islam Khan, Shamsuddin Altaf, Syed Musarrat Khalil and Mohammad Ashfaque Badayouni also spoke on the occasion.
PRC Convener Ehsanul Haque thanked Dr. Naseef and other guests, speakers, poets and journalists on joining the Pakistan Day function.