Life of Camp

 

The people known in Bangladesh as "Biharis" or "Stranded Pakistanis" are the descendants of Muslims who lived in the province of Bihar prior to the partition of India in 1947, and then migrated to East Pakistan.In 1971 Bangladesh achieved the independence through a liberation war. When Pakistan Army and Pakistani civilians evacuated, the Biharis found themselve unwelcomed in both the countries and were left behind. Pakistan feared that a mass gathering of Biharis could destabilize the fragile and culturally mixed population of Pakistan which shared no similarity with the Bihari. Furthermore, the Pakistani government believed that since Bangladesh was the successor state of East Pakistan, it had to fulfill its duty in accommodating these refugees just as Pakistan (West) did with the millions of refugees (incidentally, including Bengali) who fled to West Pakistan. Most of the Biharis are now stateless and living in refugee camps in Bangladesh as they remained loyal to Pakistan during the Liberation War in 1971.There are 9 Bihari camps in Bangladesh out of which, my work is based on the Bihari camp at Mohammadpur in Dhaka city where approximately 20,000-25,000 people are living in 11.65 sq km.area in an unhygienic & unhealthy surrounding and deprived of all facilities of general mass citizens of Bangladesh.Hence , for the sake of a sound society and from humanitarian point of view also , I think , these people Should get sufficient facilities, as general mass citizens get . Doing this, I hope we can pay a little respect to the democracy and achievement of the liberation war as well.