international journal on minority and group rights 25 (2018) 664-678 brill.com/ijgr The Status of the Bihari Community in Bangladesh under Domestic and International Law Md. Kamrul Hasan Arif Lecturer of Law, bgc Trust University Bangladesh, Chittagong, Bangladesh arifkamrulhasan@gmail.com Abstract The problems concerning the Bihari community is one of the oldest long-standing issues between Bangladesh and Pakistan. In 1971, after the independence of Bangladesh, the Bihari lost their citizenship. Presently, they are stateless and living in various camps in different parts of Bangladesh. This community wanted to be repatriated to their own country, Pakistan, but it denied them citizenship status, although a large number have been repatriated to Pakistan as their country of origin. Recently, in March 2015 the Supreme Court of Pakistan rejected the issue of stranded Pakistanis in Bangladesh regarding repatriation or taking these people back. This article has tried to determine the status of the Bihari community, what a lasting solution might be, and what the role is of international organisations in helping this community under domestic and international law. Keywords Bihari – recognition – repatriation – stateless – stranded Pakistani 1 Introduction Bangladesh achieved independence from Pakistan in 1971 after the long Liberation War.1 After independence, a considerable number of non-Bengali 1 The Liberation War between East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and West Pakistan lasted nine months. It is estimated that Pakistani army forces killed 3 million people during the conflict. Some 10 million fled the country as refugees to India, 30 million were internally © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/15718115-02503006 This content downloaded from 147.188.245.205 on Wed, 25 Oct 2023 15:43:57 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms <UN>