[citation needed] Biharis who were minors in 1971 when Bangladesh became independent, or born later, were stateless until 2008 when a judgement by the Dhaka High Court gave them right to Bangladeshi citizenship.
With covert and later overt Indian support, including massive financial assistance, East Pakistan became the independent state of Bangladesh.
Initially, 83,000 Biharis (58,000 former civil servants and military personnel), members of divided families and 25,000 hardship cases were evacuated to Pakistan.
Organisations like Refugees International urged the governments of Pakistan and Bangladesh to "grant citizenship to the hundreds of thousands of people who remain without effective nationality".
Many Pakistanis and international observers believe the plight of the Biharis has been politicised with political parties giving the refugees false hopes and impractical expectations.
[14] He encouraged his Bengali counterpart not to politicise the issue and accept the refugees as citizens being the successor state of East Pakistan.
Pakistani government officials have threatened to deport the more than 1.5 million illegal Bengali refugees living in its country if the issue is not resolved acceptably.