Munaza Kazmi 

History offers quite fascinating pages to unfold. I’m of an opinion that, one cannot move forward without knowing his origins. Today I am writing this article to remind us of our forgotten past, one of the darkest ever, unknown & silent topic of forgotten history, the vulnerable, the unjust, the forgotten indeed….“The Forgotten Refugees of Bangladesh”.

I hope you people remember Bangladesh was a part of us, which had separated reasoning our irresponsiveness. Fall of Dakha is a never-ending debate and we should take responsibility of it, since it is something unjust from our side, if not today then maybe not in the future.

It is known to every mankind, when there is war, there is death on both sides, abduction of rights & unjust, there is the loss of humanity, economy, infrastructure & everything. In-short, there comes victory for no one but the defeat & loss for both. These are the known facts of war, but what if fate prolonged the miseries & make one suffer for a lifetime & for nothing wrong or evil however for being loyal. Loyal to one’s homeland.

Such is the condition of 250,000 Urdu-speaking Pakistanis who took refuge in the Geneva camps and other surrounding areas of Bangladesh, on charge of siding with their country back in 1971. They are leading forcefully a vulnerable & unimaginable life of half-naked, starving bellies, unsheltered, without identity, a miserable life, a life of Refugee. The antidote of Beharis is one of the miserable and bad fortune of all the times, today’s world knows them as mere Refugees, who were once leading a prosperous and dignified life in their land, they were educated & cultured people, having all the knowledge, wealth and respect.

These Beharis came to this delta region of Bay of Bengal or I should say they became Refugees due to lack of unity within states.Since, back in the year 1971, again a war broke down between the neighbor states of India and Pakistan, however with Indian conspiracy the land of East Pakistan had to be separated from West Pakistan therefore it laid the foundation of what today called Bangladesh.  At that time these unfortunate Beharis decided to side with Pakistani Government against the Bangladesh Forces backed by Indian politician & troops.

Till date they are living unsheltered in small cells, with no food, no education & a proper livelihood, & are forced to live on scraps, women selling their bodies for less than half a dollar for the sake of buying a piece of bread, children dying before reaching the age of five due to malnutrition and filth, permanent starving & vulnerability had housed in these camps, a fall of humanity on which Pakistan is still blind eyed.