Pasban-e-Pakistan President, Altaf Shakoor, on Sunday expressed his displeasure over the continued harassment of Bengali speaking Pakistanis, who he said were just as patriotic as anyone else.
The police, FIA and the National Alien Registration Authority (NARA) have been tormenting them without any rhyme or reason and this injustice needs to be stopped, he said while addressing a huge gathering of Bengali-speaking Pakistanis at the 100-Quarter football ground of Korangi-5.
He reminded that at the time of the Dhaka Fall, these Pakistani preferred Pakistan over Bangladesh. “This community gave Pakistan great heroes like M M Alam. This community chose to live and die in Pakistan, but the police and other agencies are still treating them as aliens, which is a violation of the constitution of Pakistan that guarantees equal rights to all citizens,” he said.
He said that the police, FIA and NARA have made this community targets that they can extort for bribes. He said that if M M Alam was a true Pakistani then this whole community is also patriotic and nobody should have any doubt in this regard.
He said the Bengali speaking brothers and sisters who settled before 1971 in Karachi and other cities and who were born here after 1971 are genuine Pakistani citizens as per the constitution and they should not be harassed due to their language or cultural background. He reminded the police and agencies that for Pakistani the maximum sacrifices were laid by Bengali speaking people.
Pasban leader Mushtaq Ahmed Malook, representing the Bengali speaking community, presented a resolution to stop harassment of this community on the pretext of CNIC, B Form and Passport. It said police, FIA and NARA should stop taking bribes from Bengali speaking people and lodging forged cases against them if they refuse to pay bribes.
