Over 1m. Refugees Return To Bangladesh
By A Staff Reporter, The repatriation of Bangladesh evacuees from the five border States of India on Wednesday crossed a million mark, a Union Rehabilitation Ministry official said in Calcutta on Wednesday. Till Tuesday 992,283 evacuees had gone back from these States. Of them 397,531 were from West Bengal, 499,045 from Tripura, 88358 from Meghalaya, 6,912 from Assam and 437 from Bihar. About 9.9 million evacuees from Bangladesh had taken shelter in India.
The West Bengal Government Refugee and Rehabilitation Commissioner Dr. B. K. Bhattacharyaa, said in Calcutta on Wednesday that on an average about 64,000 evacuees were returning daily to Bangladesh from West Bengal. The largest number of them, more than 84,000, had gone back from 24-Parganas. There were over 1.5 million evacuees in this district. From West Dinajpur, which had the second largest number of evacuees-1,362,639-only about 41,000 had left till Tuesday. This comparatively small number of departures from there has prompted the Refugee Commissioner to send a departmental officer to the area so that the repartriations could be accelerated.
Dr. Bhattacharya said that transport was standing in the way of repatriating a larger number of evacuees to Bangladesh. He said he had suggested to the Union Government that the evacuees might be given transport money so that they could go back on their own. The amount, Dr. Bhattacharya said, would vary according to distances the evacuees would cover.
Dr. Bhattacharya also said that he had asked District Magistrates not to hold up repatriation from the camps if the evacuees could not be supplied with 14 days food rations. He had ordered that the evacuees be given cash in lieu of grain in that event.
Dr. Bhattacharya told reporters that on Wednesday the Administrative Liaison officer in Bangladesh, who is responsible for Khulna, Jessore, Kushtia and Faridpur districts, phoned him to say that a larger number of evacuee reception centers had been opened in those areas and all these were ready to receive the repatriates.
Meanwhile, a control center has been set up in the office of the District Commissioner, Jessore, to coordinate the movement of evacuees returning to Jessore, Khulna, Faridpur and Patuakhali districts.
On Thursday an important meeting of district officials and State and Union Refugee department officials will be held to discuss ways of accelerating repatriation and make necessary transport arrangements.
Reference: Hindustan Standard, 07.01.1972