Photo: Mahabub Alam Khan / Drikneews

This is the news of the decades for the Urdu-speaking Bangladeshi citizens who have been languishing in about 116 camps and settlements all over Bangladesh since 1971. The City Corporation in Dhaka will rehabilitate the inmates of camps in Mohammadpur by constructing 45 fifteen storied building at Town Hall Camp and Geneva Camp. The project under the Ministry of LGRD will be completed in four years' time; as reported in The Daily Star and other papers on 4 February 2010. Now it is hoped similar projects will also be undertaken for the camp dwellers of other areas like Khulna, Chittagong, Ishwardi , Rangpur, Syedpur, Mymensingh, Narayanganj, Bogra, and Mirpur (Dhaka).
I do not know how the news was taken by the leaders of the SPGRC (Stranded Pakistanis General Repatriation Committee) who were always telling the people that if they would become Bangladeshi citizens, the government would evict them from camps.
This news is an eye opener for such vested interests who kept the innocent and distressed camp dwellers under the impression that Islamabad would take them and rehabilitate them in Mia Chunnu in Punjab and thus exploited them for about 37 years.
Pakistan has founded a Trust with sharing of fund with the Rabita Alam-e-Islam (Muslim World League) for the purpose of repatriation and rehabilitation.. Now, the rehabilitation project for these people, will be implanted in Bangladesh, it will be a moral obligation for Pakistan to hand over the Trust Fund to Bangladesh.