Four decades on, 63 Hindu families displaced from East Pakistan get land, houses

Lucknow: After a four-decade-long wait, 63 Hindu families displaced from East Pakistan were given houses, agricultural land and residential plots by the Uttar Pradesh government on Tuesday.

Each family was given two acres for agriculture purposes, a residential plot measuring 200 sq metres and a house in Kanpur Dehat district.

Speaking on the occasion, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath held previous governments responsible for the plight of such families.

All these families had migrated from East Pakistan, now called Bangladesh, in 1970s and were given jobs in a yarn mill in Hastinapur town of Meerut district, he said.

The CM said the yarn mill closed down 1984 and some of them were rehabilitated while 65 families kept waiting for their rehabilitation.

''Your 38-year-long wait is over today,'' the CM said in the presence of Deputy CMs Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brajesh Pathak and Jal Shakti Minister Swatantra Dev Singh.

''I am happy while granting two acres of land, 200 sq metres residential patta to each of the 63 families in the Rasulabad area of Kanpur Dehat district,'' he said, adding that each family is being given a house under the chief minister's housing scheme.

Targeting previous regimes, Adityanath said people used to go to them but ''insensitive'' governments never took them seriously.

He asked why their sufferings did not reach who talked about the poor and why they did not do any work for the people of Musahar (rat eaters) caste or why people from Vantangiya villages in eastern Uttar Pradesh had been left to fend for themselves.

Citing achievements of his government, the CM said, ''We converted 38 villages of Vantangiya into revenue villages and they voted for the first time in the Assembly elections after the Independence.'' Originally brought from Myanmar for afforestation activities during the British period, the Vantangiya community has been living in forests since then without any modern development as their villages lacked the revenue village status that makes them eligible for welfare schemes.

After becoming the UP chief minister in 2017, Adityanath had granted the revenue village status to many Vantangiya people.

Elaborating on efforts of his government, he said ,''When Prime Minister Narendra Modi passed the order to give citizenship to the minorities migrating from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, we started searching for such people in UP also and traced the families.'' He termed this as an unprecedented example of India's service to humanity. The benefits are meant for 63 families but the population of 400 is going to be directly benefited by this, he said.

Adityanath said so far 1.08 lakh houses have been provided such families.