Hosen Gazi says he was moved by the condition of the displaced Rohingya on a visit to the Bangladesh-Myanmar border areas
Taking to heart Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's call for welcoming refugees, a resident of Hardaha village at Baruipur in South 24 Parganas District has provided shelter to 29 Rohingya who fled Myanmar.
A social worker, Hosen Gazi (45) runs an NGO Desh Bachao Samajik Committee and decided to shelter these eight families who had come to him a few months ago.
"I am labour contractor myself. We have ancestral land. I gathered funds from different organisations and decided to build shelters for them," Gazi told DNA. He claims to have spent Rs 3.26 lakh on 2-room tin huts for each of the eight families. "I have also install a tubewell, well and a few toilets for them," he added.
Gazi said he was moved by the condition of the displaced Rohingya on a visit to the Bangladesh-Myanmar border areas.
"I dont have the means for helping all the nine lakh people there but I thought I could do something for these 29 persons and thus did this," he told DNA.
Gazi said initially there were a few police visits but after the intervention of some elected representatives it had been streamlined.
Among the eight families, Md Shahidul Islam, a 27-year-old from Segum Para of Buthidaung in Rakhine, is the only one who could speak a little Hindi and Bengali.
"Our family escaped and reached Bangladesh. After a few months of working as a daily labourer there, we crossed the Bangladesh border with the help of an agent and came over to India. Once here, we went to Delhi and got refugee cards," adding that a Rohingya acquaintance there sent them to Gazi.
Zubaida, who is above 50 years of age, has forgotten her surname. "We escaped to Bangladesh and then came to India. Here we are happy. At least we live without being afraid of being killed or raped," she said.
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- Hosen Gazi said he was moved by the condition of the displaced Rohingya on a visit to the Bangladesh-Myanmar border areas.
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