Biharis to be Granted Bangladeshi Citizenship

The Bangladeshi High Court ruled that the children of Urdu-speaking "Bihari" Muslims awaiting repatriation to Pakistan for over 37 years would be granted Bangladeshi citizenship.

"The children who were minor in 1971 or born after the independence of Bangladesh are citizens of Bangladesh," the High Court said in a ruling, over a petition by a group of Bihari Muslims pleading for Bangladeshi citizenship. With the ruling140,000 of them who were either born in Bangladesh or have expressed loyalty to the country would be granted citizenship.

The nearly 300,000 Bihirais in Bangladesh have been stateless since the 1971 civic war. They migrated to former East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) from India following the partition of the subcontinent in 1947 but sided with the Pakistan army during Bangladesh's 1971 war of independence.

Pakistan has avoided the issue over decades despite repeated requests by Bangladesh, leaving the Biharis in crammed, squalid camps in Dhaka and other towns, run by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees and the Bangladeshi government.

But the new generation Biharis, who say they do not belong to Pakistan nor want to go there, have for years urged the Dhaka government to accept them as Bangladeshis -- despite objections from their parents and grandparents.