KARACHI: Life for 42-year-old Noor Alam, a Rohingya Muslim living in Baldia Town, was never smooth.
Alam, a father of four, caught polio which made him partially disabled.
His problems increased as his children grew up, Syed Muhammad Yousuf, Alam’s friend and a Rohingya activist, told Arab News.
Alam, who drives an autorickshaw to earn for his family, was born in 1965 in Karachi where his parents came from, in what was then East Pakistan – it’s now Bangladesh.
In 2014, two of his four children – a daughter and a son – were promoted to Grade Nine, for which they required a computerized B-Form.
B-Form, a certificate mandatory for enrolling in secondary education, had not been needed before.
“When he applied for a B-Form for his two children, the local officials of NADRA (National Data Base Registration Authority) sent his case for verification,” Yousuf explained, but three years later verification has not been completed.
His elder son and daughter have not been able to acquire secondary education and Alam is also worried about his two other children.
The identity cards of his entire family are now blocked.
It is not only Alam’s story, Yousuf said. “This is the story almost every second of over 800,000 Rohingya families living in the commercial capital of Pakistan.”
All those able to get higher education did so before 2014 when the B-form wasn’t declared mandatory for enrolment.
The Rohingya community in Pakistan is living in a state of uncertainty and “the issue of education of their children tops its list of problems,” said Shaheedullah, a Rohingya youth.
Zabihullah Arakani, President of the Pak Rohingya Welfare Organization, told Arab News that the Rohingya community lived in more than 60 slums in Karachi.
The last influx of Rohingya came to Pakistan in the early 1990s, said 64-year-old Muhammad Saleem, who still remembers his horrifying journey from Myanmar to East Pakistan in 1969.
His family came to Karachi after spending a few years in East Pakistan. He complained that despite having lived in the country for decades, the Rohingyas are denied a Pakistani identity.
Back in Myanmar, he said, oppression of Rohingyas started in 1942, even before Burma’s independence.
“We came here in 1969, after which life in Burma became difficult for the Rohingyas,” Saleem added.
Here in Pakistan, community members say they want nothing but an identity and education for their kids.
Reports suggest that the Rohingya exodus to Pakistan began soon after Pakistani President Ayub Khan – who had served in Burma from 1942 to 1945 – offered during his visit to the country in 1965 to settle them on Pakistani soil.
Those who reached Karachi praise Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, former prime minister, and General Zia-ul-Haq, a former president, who allowed them to leave their refugee camps and live in the city like Pakistani nationals; but Rohingya are not happy with Bhutto’s party.
In September a senator from Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party, on an adjournment motion in Pakistan’s upper house, called for giving Rohingya Pakistani nationality. But he invited the ire of men of his own party, which is dominated by Sindhi-speaking people.
In November 2017, when he was Minister of State for Interior, Talal Chaudhry presented a plan to amend the Pakistan Citizenship Act of 1951 to give Pakistani nationality to Bengalis and Burmese living in Sindh. Aijaz Dhamra, Sindh Information Secretary of the Pakistan People’s Party, said that the people and the government of Sindh would not let it happen.
This opposition to awarding nationality to Rohingya, along with the interior ministry’s recent measures for more checks, has increased the miseries of the community in Pakistan.
Without computerized national identity cards, Rohingya are struggling to find jobs.
In Arkanabad in the Korangi town of Karachi, the community is associated with the fishing industry.
“Despite sharing most of the burden, I am paid less than my Pakistani fellows just because I have no identity here,” said Abul Salam, a fisherman.
“We want an identity but if even that’s denied to us, our children have the universal right to education.”
“If a way out wasn’t suggested amid these strict rules of NADRA, the coming Rohingya generation in Pakistan would be completely illiterate,” said Yousuf.
Rohingya in Karachi are ‘denied a Pakistani identity’
Rohingya in Karachi are ‘denied a Pakistani identity’
Pakistan opposition continues sit-in outside parliament over ex-PM Khan’s eye treatment
- Opposition leader says the protest will continue until Imran Khan, currently at Adiala prison, is admitted to Shifa Hospital
- The government says Khan’s medical report will be compiled again, promising no negligence in the matter under judicial oversight
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s opposition alliance is continuing its sit-in outside the Parliament House in Islamabad for the second day on Saturday, seeking shifting of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan to a private hospital for treatment of his worsening eye condition.
The protest follows a rare prison visit earlier this week by Barrister Salman Safdar, appointed as amicus curiae by the Supreme Court to assess Khan’s health and living conditions at Rawalpindi’s Adiala jail. In his report, Safdar highlighted “seriousness” of Khan’s ocular condition and recommended an independent examination.
On Friday evening, opposition members gathered outside the parliament building in Islamabad to stage a sit-in, with the police locking its gates and cordoning off surrounding roads to prevent protesters from gathering in front of the building, witnesses and opposition leaders said.
Mehmood Khan Achakzai, the head of the Tehreek-e-Tahafuz-e-Ayeen-e-Pakistan opposition alliance, criticized the authorities for the measures to prevent opposition members from reaching the sit-in venue in Islamabad.
“We are not the ones who make threats, but if you continue with this attitude, after two or three days every roundabout in Pakistan will be closed,” Achakzai said on X late Friday. “Then we will not even be able to handle the people.”
In an earlier post on X, the alliance said its leadership would continue the sit-in “until Imran Khan is admitted to Al-Shifa Hospital.”
“We have staged a sit-in for the earliest medical check-up of Imran Khan, which would take just ten minutes,” Achakzai told reporters on Friday evening. “If it is conducted, we will end our protest.”
According to a Feb. 6 medical report from the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) cited in Safdar’s filing, Khan was diagnosed with “right central retinal vein occlusion” after reporting reduced vision in his right eye. He underwent an intravitreal injection at PIMS and was discharged with follow-up advice.
In his interaction with Safdar, Khan said he had suffered “rapid and substantial loss of vision over the preceding three months” and claimed his complaints had not been addressed promptly in custody. He further said he had been left with “only 15 percent vision in his right eye.”
Safdar’s report noted that the 73-year-old former premier appeared “visibly perturbed and deeply distressed” over the loss of vision, though it also recorded that he expressed satisfaction with his safety, basic amenities and food provisions in prison.
Responding to the controversy, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Tariq Fazal Chaudhry rejected PTI’s claims that Khan had been suffering from an eye issue since October last year, noting that the ex-premier was visited by his sister on Dec. 2 but she did not mention the medical issue.
“Medical report will be compiled again, the chief justice of the Supreme Court is himself monitoring this case,” he said. “Wherever it will be requested, Imran Khan’s eye will be examined at.”
Chaudhry vowed there would be no negligence.
Khan has been in custody since August 2023 in connection with multiple cases that he and his party describe as politically motivated. The government denies the allegation.
Concerns over his health resurfaced after authorities confirmed he had briefly been taken from prison to a hospital in Islamabad for an eye procedure. While the government said his condition was stable, Khan’s family and PTI leaders alleged they were not informed in advance and that he was being denied timely and independent medical access.
