A delegation of refugees in conversation with Amit Shah. Image credit: Hindustan Times
A delegation of refugees in conversation with Amit Shah. Image credit: Hindustan Times

A group of minority refugees from Bangladesh (erstwhile East Pakistan), living in Uttar Pradesh, thanked union home minister Amit Shah on Tuesday for amending CAA.

A member from the group thanking Amit Shah said his family migrated to India in 1964 when he was only 8-year-old.

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โ€œWe were targeted by the majority back then. I vividly remember seeing women get raped and children being killed. Many men were also forced to convert their religion,โ€ he added.

โ€œSeeing these horrors everywhere, my father decided to move to India,โ€ he added.

He further said that around 200 families had initially come to India and a majority of them migrated from East Pakistanโ€™s Khulna, Jessore and Faridpur areas.

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โ€œThe numbers gradually increased as the atrocities in East Pakistan escalated. My parents migrated from Faridpur area in East Pakistan,โ€ said another member from the group who lives in Lakhimpur Kheri district of Uttar Pradesh.

โ€œWhen we had put up at a camp in present-day Chhattisgarh, I was only 14 years old. Nearly 1700 families arrived in Udham Singh Nagar,โ€ he added.

โ€œThe numbers, however, gradually increased and thousands of others came to settle in Lakhimpur Kheri in 1970,โ€ he added.

Another member of the group said that those who arrived after 1964, they were not registered and hence they were forced to live on roads without any facilities.

โ€œThe Citizenship (Amendment) Act will grant us facilities, respect and recognition,โ€ he added.

Speaking to reporters after meeting the group Amit Shah said, โ€œThey had tears when I met them. I had no words to express.โ€