Looks like they do not want to go back to Pakistan …
‘Stranded’ Pakistanis in Bangladesh demand voting rights
Dhaka: Thousands of Pakistani nationals stranded in Bangladesh for over three decades since the creation of the country in 1971 have demanded voting rights, saying they are Bangladeshi citizens.
Some 238,000 Pakistanis, who opted to go back to Pakistan after Bangladesh became independent in 1971, are now languishing in 66 squalid camps in 13 districts across the country.
A delegation of the Bangladesh Mohajir Welfare and Development Committee, representing the Pakistanis, met Chief Election Commissioner M.A. Aziz Tuesday, New Age daily reported.
Led by committee president Ejaz Ahmed Siddique, the five-member delegation urged Aziz to enlist them and their children on the voters’ rolls.
“We are all sons of the soil, we are not Pakistanis. Please allow us to avail our rights of franchise and enlist those eligible to vote,” said a memorandum submitted to Aziz on behalf of the committee.
“I was born and brought up in Bangladesh. Now I have come to the chief election commissioner to avail our right of franchise,” said Abdul Quddus Sawon, a 33-year old Mohajir leader.
Siddique said many others like Sawon, born in Bangladesh and living in the camps for “stranded Pakistanis”, could not avail their right to franchise.
He said it was the civic right of the stranded Pakistanis to become voters as they celebrated all the national days of Bangladesh, including Independence Day and Victory Day, and 99 percent of them wanted to live in the country.