Two Bengali envoys ask for asylum in France
Two Bengali diplomats at the Pakistan Embassy in Paris – Mr. Mosharaf Hussain and Mr. Shauqat Ali-have asked the French Government for Political asylum. They told the State-controlled radio on Wednesday night that they were ordered to return to West Pakistan. They hoped their request would be granted.
In New Delhi on Thursday, the diplomatic representative of the Bangladesh Government Mr. Shehabuddin, congratulated them on their “right and courageous decisions”. In Calcutta, a spokesman of the Foreign Office of the Bangladesh Government also praised them for their “choice of freedom from the Fascist warlords of West Pakistan” and “allegiance to the Bangladesh Government.”
The diplomats said they were ordered on June 30 to return to West Pakistan but one of their relatives who had taken refuge in India urged them not to leave, reports Reuter.
The two men said they hoped they could remain in France until the situation returned to normal in East Pakistan.
“We feel secure in France” they told the radio.
The diplomats said that since the Pak Army began its campaign against Bengali nationalists in East Pakistan in March they had been harassed by other Embassy officials.
They said their passports were taken away and they were demoted to lower ranks from posts of responsibility. One said his French residence permit was also taken away.
Both men are married and their wives are with them in France. Our Special Correspondent reports from Delhi.
Mr. Shehabuddin said on Thursday that he had no doubt that most of Bangladesh diplomats and officials in various capitals of the world would “follow suit quickly, as they cannot collaborate with or serve the foreign barbarous Government of Islamabad, which is perpetrating a planned genocide in Bangladesh.”
Mr. Shehabuddin, who along with another Bengali diplomat, Mr. Amjadul Huq, had sought political asylum in India and had switched his allegiance to the Bangladesh Government said that the circumstances in which these officials had to defect “prove my contention that Pakistan has carried their aggression in Bangladesh to their missions abroad. Nations of the world have a moral responsibility to ensure that their territory is not used for ill treating Bangladesh citizens.”
The Bangladesh diplomat expressed his and his Government’s gratitude to the French Government for their assurance of sympathetic consideration of the request of Mr. Hussain and Mr. Ali for political asylum in France.
Our Staff Reporter adds: In Calcutta, a spokesman of the Foreign office of the Bangladesh Government said: “We do not call it defection, Ambassadors of Pakistan have impounded the passports of their Bengali officials, refused and denied their entitlements and turned them into non-entities. In some instance, they have abolished the posts the Bengalis had been holding abroad and transferred them to Islamabad for virtual imprisonment.” • The spokesman said that only recently Bengali officers of the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi were victims of assault and battery by their “colleagues”. They had been kept in virtual imprisonment within their Chancery. If someone was allowed to go out even to consult a doctor his family is kept as hostages until his return.“
The spokesman called upon the Government of France to extend all co-operation to the patriots of Bangladesh.
Reference: Hindustan Standard, 09.07.1971