As I said, these Rohingyas have been in Pakistan for the last 30-40 years. Am talking about the fresh batch of refugees from Myanmar.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1165299
and then let him go after taking a bribe of Rs200.
“Harassment at the hands of Karachi police has become a routine matter for our community as we do not have Pakistani national identity cards despite having been living in the country for the past 35 years,” says Hassan, a Burmese Muslim known as the Rohingya, who was born in Karachi.
Hassan is one of the thousands of young Rohingyas whose parents had fled persecution in Burma (now called Myanmar) over the past 35 years to Karachi.
In the early years of their migration, they felt comparatively comfortable and welcome in the Muslim state of Pakistan. Their large-scale migration had made Karachi one of the largest Rohingya population centres outside Myanmar but afterwards the situation started turning against them.
Although Rohingyas and Bengalis live side by side in dozens of shantytowns of Karachi, mainly in Bin Qasim and Korangi towns, both communities are very different from each other culturally and linguistically.
But the Rohingyas generally call themselves Bengalis. “It is because they want to show that they have also migrated to Pakistan before the fall of Dhaka and it helps them get naturalised citizenship,” said Saleh Shahabuddin, a Bengali community leader in Machchar Colony area of Keamari.
Experts say that migration of both Bengalis and Burmese started in 1980s, which had continued intermittently until 1998. “Because of a liberal policy towards migrants and refugees during Gen Ziaul Haq’s military regime, major Rohingya exodus took place (to Karachi),” said Zia Ahmed Awan, a lawyer who worked extensively on issues of illegal immigration and human trafficking.
During Zia’s regime, they were brought to Pakistan for two purposes - study in madresshas and participate in Afghan jihad. “Zia offered them residence permits in Pakistan and thousands landed in Karachi. But they were never granted citizenship,” said Mr Awan.
