“I want everybody’s co-operation, so that there is pressure on Myanmar government to take them back fast,” Hasina said after inaugurating the Bangladesh Bhawan in West Bengal’s Birbhum district.
Hasina said her government decided to give shelter to the Rohingya on humanitarian grounds as they were persecuted back home.
“Close to 1.1mn Rohingya refugees have taken shelter on Bangladeshi soil... We have given them shelter on humanitarian grounds. But we want them to return to their country soon,” she said.
The Bangladesh prime minister recalled her sister Rehana’s appeal to her to give shelter to the Rohingya.
“My sister Rehana told me, when you provide meals to 160mn people (of Bangladesh), can’t you provide meal to 700,000 more?
“We can. If need be, we will share our food with them,” Hasina said.
The Indian government has refused to give shelter to the fleeing Rohingya refugees, saying it was already facing a “serious problem of infiltration” because of its porous border.
However, yesterday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi remained mum on the issue at the Visva-Bharati University convocation as also the inauguration of the Bangladesh Bhawan.
Some 1.1mn Rohingya have been residing in the southeastern part of Bangladesh, known as the Cox’s Bazar region, after they fled Rakhine state of Myanmar to escape a military crackdown on their villages on the night of
August 24-25, last year.
Myanmar authorities, who signed an agreement with Bangladesh last November to repatriate the refugees, have denied allegations of human rights abuses in the military offensive and justified it as a legitimate response to terror.
Myanmar does not recognise the Rohingya as citizens, claiming they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, which has led to continued discrimination against the community, including restrictions on their freedom of movement.
Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina waves to the media after her visit at the ancestral house of the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore in Kolkata, India, yesterday.
