Citizenship rights still a far cry for Bangladeshi Biharis

Auyub Hossain, Sabbir and Shahjadi of the Mirpur camps said that they have already paid a significant amount of money for their passports, however they are yet to receive them. Ayub has so far paid Tk14,000 while Shahjadi has given Tk8,000 for their passports. Sabbir did not disclose how much he had paid. They made their statements yesterday, in a press briefing arranged by the Council of Minorities and Nagorik Uddyog in Dhaka Javed, a Bihari of Geneva camp in Mohammadpur has been trying to get a passport since 2013, and in 2015 it was finally confirmed that he could not avail a passport as he does not have a permanent address. He had done all he could do to get a passport, but the Special Branch (SB) of police declined to give him one as he resided in a Bihari camp. Javed said that the SB official, after seeing that the high court and home ministry had ruled in favour of citizenship, finally asked for an electric bill. As Javed could not provide this, the SB official denied him the passport on the grounds that a voter ID was useless in the situation. Sadaqat Khan, president of the Urdu Speaking Peoples Youth Rehabilitation Movement (USPYRM), said that, after receiving his passport, he was still harassed by SB and other law enforcers agencies as they refused to believe he had attained the passport legally. Later, he had to file a case with the court to regain his passport. The USPYM president said: “More than 300k Urdu speaking Bangladeshis are now in fear of when they will have to be evacuated from the camps as, even after recognition from the home ministry as citizens of the country, they are still denied their passports and other facilities.” DU Professor Mesbah Kamal said mistrust had been created among the general people due to the common perception that Biharis opposed liberation, whereas there are people among the Biharis who have received the Bir Uttom medal for their role in liberation war. Commenting on the discrimination against minorities, Proessor Swapon Adnan, a retired teacher of Chittagong University, said: “At present, extreme nationalism is running rampant throughout the country. Making all the people of the country as Bangali through the constitution has either ignored their identities or their rights.” Regarding the conundrum of nationalty, Rubi Amatullah, executive director of Women for Good Governance, said: “Nationality should be based on language. Impartial rules of law should be used to integrate all people so that no minor community would be detached from the integration approach.” DU professor Taslima Yasmin termed the discrimination shown against Biharis as unconstitutional and said: “Those whose father or grandfather are not citizens of the country will never be citizens of the country and might be homeless due to the draft of the Citizenship Act 2016.” Before enacting the law, mass awareness should be created to avoid such a disaster, the professor urged. After the liberation war, the government in 1973 had snatched Bihari houses and rehabilitated them to the camps. Now, local political powers are the main land grabbers that have pulled them in to risk of being homeless.