Author: Times News Network
Publication: The Times of India
- Intern Edition
Date: November 5, 2001
Kolkata: West Bengal Pradesh Congress
Committee president Pranab Mukherjee is against declaring as refugees people
who are arriving in the state from Bangladesh for shelter after facing
religious and political persecution in the wake of the election victory
of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).
"This is likely to aggravate the
problem," he said in Kolkata on Sunday. Mukherjee feared that this would
worsen further the problem already prevailing in West Bengal, Assam and
Tripura. Besides, the arrival of a large number of refugees could create
communal tension. Mukherjee was in favour of "nipping the problem in the
bud" through requests to the Bangladesh government to do something about
it.
For this, Mukherjee would soon speak
to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and home minister L.K.Advani. "Bangladesh
is a sovereign country and we can't do anything about this problem. Still,
India can take up the issue with Bangladesh as it is a friendly country,"
he said.
The formation of Bangladesh in 1971
had been a watershed, so far as the stand of India on the question of refugees
was concerned, he said. Before that, India had declared that people of
minority communities in former East Pakistan could come to India as refugees.
But, since Bangladesh was a secular country, India did not have reasons
to continue with such a commitment.
The WBPCC did not have any estimate
of how many people had entered the state from Bangladesh in recent weeks.
Those who were arriving were easily mixing with the local population in
places near the border and evading detection, he said.
