ISLAMABAD, Jan 24: Pakistan today expressed its 'firm' commitment to repatriate 238,000 stranded Pakistanis from Bangladesh and appealed to citizens to donate funds for the purpose, reports AFP.

"The present government has firmly renewed its pledge to do all it can to bring and rehabilitate these stranded Pakistanis,' said an official statement, carried by the official Associated Press of Pakistan news agency.

The statement appealed to citizens for 'generous' contributions to an international trust launched for the 'noble cause' by the Saudi Arabia-based relief organisation, Rabita Al-Alam Al-Islami, and Pakistan in 1988.

Hundreds of Pakistanis, known as Biharis, were repatriated in 1992 during current prime minister Nawaz Sharif's earlier term in office, but the process was halted after Benazir Bhutto succeeded him in 1993.

The repatriated families were resettled in housing units built by the Rabita trust in Punjab, Sharif's home province.

The Pakistan pledge followed Sharif's talks with Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Hasina Wajed in Dhaka earlier this month after a three-nation economic summit with her and Indian prime minister Inder Kumar Gujral.

'The present government has firmly renewed its pledge to do all it can to bring and rehabilitate these stranded Pakistanis, (who) number over 238,000 according to census carried out jointly in 1991-92,' the statement said.

Some 932 families will be brought to Pakistan 'within the next three months' and put up in housing units constructed by the Rabita trust at Mian Channu in Punjab, it added.

Out of a planned 41,500 housing units in various districts of Punjab, at an estimated cost of 250 million dollars, about 1,000 units have been completed at Mian Channu in 1994.

'Our gigantic humanitarian programme needs your attention and generous support,' the appeal told Pakistanis, asking them to contribute money to two special bank accounts for donations in foreign and local currencies.

'These Pakistanis have been living under indescribable conditions in Bangladesh for over a quarter of a century for no reason other than their pride in calling themselves Pakistanis,' it said.

Urdu-speaking Biharis originally migrated from India to the then East Pakistan when the Sub-continent was partitioned in 1947 after Britain ended its colonial rule.

They sided with Islamabad when East Pakistan fought a 1971 war of independence to become Bangladesh.

Invoking the Muslim holy book, the statement said "it is clearly the responsibility of all of us as ordained in the glorious Quran" to attend to the needs of 'these destitute brethren-in-Islam' who 'are denied the freedom of movement even to earn their daily bread.'The government recalled 'many obstacles' to the repatriation process in the past-apparently alluding to opposition from native populations in Pakistan's southern Sindh province, the home province of Bhutto.

Sindhi-speaking nationalist groups have said the repatriation would hurt their interests as most migrants from India after 1947 settled in Sindh and new arrivals were likely to join them.

Karachi's influential party, the Mutehadda Qaumi Movement (MQM), representing the settler community, have demanded the repatriation go ahead. The party is a coalition partner of Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League.