Biharis' comeback
There is a growing demand in Bangladesh that Urdu-speaking non-Bengalis, often called “Biharis”, or “Pakistanis stranded in Bangladesh”, be enrolled as voters and accepted as citizens. The deprived lot comprises mainly the Urdu-speaking people from Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar who migrated to the erstwhile East Pakistan, created when India was partitioned in 1947.
The general perception is that they did well socially and economically in their new founded homeland, thanks to the domination of West Pakistan in national affairs.
However, Bangladesh’s independence in 1971 left them stranded in a hostile terrain. They declared themselves Pakistanis and demanded that they be repatriated. Their number was then estimated at around a million.
After years of negotiations, a few thousand were repatriated, but the rest multiplied, living in shanty camps, socially ostracized and with no voting rights.
Many families succeeded in smuggling themselves across the subcontinent, entering and leaving India through porous borders, bribing border guards of three nations, to join their brethren in Pakistan.
Many were caught in the act, however, and some killed by the border guards.
Their presence in Bangladesh raises passions among the Bengalis even after 36 years of Bangladesh’s creation.
Present estimates of their numbers vary from 200,000 to 1.1 million living in 55 to 60 camps spread across Bangladesh.
In its May 17 report of this year, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) put their number at 200,000. Although Pakistan at first offered refuge to “fleeing Biharis”, neither nation offers citizenship today to those who stayed behind, it noted.
In 2003, a court ruling allowed Bangladeshi citizenship and voting rights to 10 young Biharis. BBC then reported that younger people, who have never been to Pakistan, were “elated” over the ruling. But the older generation was despaired, saying their “true home” was in Pakistan.
Couple killed
A Christian priest and his American wife were shot dead at their home in Islamabad in what police said was a revenge attack for an alleged rape. The detained couple were also Christians and had confessed to the crime. The wife accused the priest of having raped her some months before, when he invited her to his residence. The priest filmed the assault and was trying to blackmail her, she claimed.
Wildlife fence
India’s plan to fence its border with Bangladesh is posing a serious threat to several endangered wildlife species in the Dampa tiger reserve in Mizoram. Four of India’s northeastern states share a border with Bangladesh and the areas are being fenced for security. Mizoram shares a 318-km-long border with Bangladesh, of which 80 km falls along the park, which is home to many rare species including the Himalayan black bear, marbled cat, tiger, and the Phayre’s leaf monkey.
Lightning kills two
Two people were killed and three injured in a lightning strike in Bangladesh’s Brahmanbaria district, 80 km east of Dhaka Witnesses were quoted by private news agency UNB as saying that Ripon, 25, and Alal, 19, died instantly as thunderbolts struck them while they were working on a cropland. Bangladesh is experiencing monsoon season which starts mid of June and ends mid of October.
Heavy rain and thunderstorm are common in this season, which usually cause loss of life and property every year.
Militant assassin
A special court in Bangladesh has sentenced to death an Islamic militant for killing a Christian preacher in retaliation for allegedly converting local Muslims to Christianity, judicial officials said. Salahuddin Salaheen, a member of the Jamiatul Mujahideen, an outlawed Islamic militant group. was tried for the murder of Christian preacher Redoy Roy in April 2003.
Roy was reportedly enticing local Muslims to the Christian faith with gifts in the small town of Sharishabari, 320km north-east of the capital Dhaka.
