The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

The stranded Urdu-speaking people living in camps in Bangladesh have demanded the intervention of the Chief Adviser and Chief Election Commissioner to enlist them as voters and nationals of the country.

Bangladeshi Bihari Rehabilitation Assembly yesterday organised a press conference at the National Press Club demanding Voter and National Identity Cards for themselves.

The Assembly leaders said those, who lived at the various refugee camps, were Bangladeshi citizens as per the country's constitution and laws and international laws.

Claiming themselves as the Bangladeshi citizens, they said the residents of the refugee camps never expressed allegiance to any other country other than Bangladesh.

Placing a seven-point demand they said the Government should remove all hindrances from the way to ensuring the citizenship rights for the stranded people and provide residence-ship to them.

They claimed that no Pakistani citizen among the stranded people now in Bangladesh. The people, who would claim and introduce themselves as Pakistani citizens, have all of them gone to Pakistan. The last batch of the Pakistanis left Bangladesh in 1992.

Chief patron of the Assembly Naez Ahmad Khan, President Kawshar Parvez Bholu, General Secretary Hanif, Jahid, Liakat Ali and Nurjahan Akhter Rina, student of the Eden Girls College, among others, were present at the conference.