The leaders of the stranded Pakistanis held the politicians of both Pakistan and Bangladesh responsible for their plight.
They castigated the politicians at the inaugural session of the 12th annual general conference of the Stranded Pakistanis General Repatriation Committee held at the national press club on Tuesday with committee leader M. Nasim Khan in the chair.
They said if the agreements signed earlier were followed to the letter, the problem would have been solved long ago. Ghulam M. Quader MP, journalist Gias Kamal Chowdhury, editor of The Good Morning, Enayet H Khan, among others, addressed the function.
Quader blamed the governments of Bangladesh and Pakistan for not solving the problems for years. He said Bangladesh should sue Pakistan in the International Court of Justice for the latter's failure to honour the agreements it had signed earlier.
Nasim Khan said they had opted to stay in Bangladesh in 1972 but they were cheated by the then government of Pakistan. "The Delhi agreement raised our hope of repatriation to Pakistan," he said.
He also reiterated the stranded Pakistanis' demand for a tripartite meeting with the representatives of Bangladesh and Pakistan governments immediately to end their sufferings for more than three decades.
Some 2,38,000 Pakistanis are now languishing in 66 squalid camps in 13 districts of the country. He also said the governments of Bangladesh and Pakistan should come to a decision immediately whether the stranded Pakistanis would be repatriated to Pakistan or rehabilitated in Bangladesh.
Nasim categorically said it does not matter whether they were repatriated to Pakistan or rehabilitated in Bangladesh. "We actually need to solve this long standing problem." He said the government of Pakistan had cheated them with the false hope of repatriation.
"We have been living sub-human lives in squalid camps for that to happen for more than three decades." Nasim said although the stranded Pakistanis repeatedly demanded a tripartite meeting since 1997 to solve their long standing problem, both Bangladesh and Pakistan turned a deaf ear to their pleas. -By arrangement with New Age/Dhaka
