Fire raced through a refugee camp on the outskirts of Dhaka on Saturday and injured at least 80 people and left 17,000 homeless, police and fire officials said. A police officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the blaze wiped out most of the shanties in the camp at Mirpour, north of the city. The fire was believed caused by an electrical short-circuit. The camp housed Biharis awaiting resettlement in Pakistan. The Biharis, who are Moslems, originated in India but settled in the territory once known as East Pakistan. The territory became Bangladesh in 1971, after a war with Pakistan. Thousands of Biharis have been resettled in Pakistan, but nearly 250,000 remain in Bangladesh awaiting transfer. The resettlement program has been suspended for lack of funds. Nasim Khan, a leader of the Biharis, complained that there are often fires at the refugee camps because of poor construction. ``Our repeated requests to the concerned authorities to do something about it have produced no results,'' Khan said. He estimated it would cost $3 million to rebuild the camp and replace the families' lost goods. There was no word on the conditions of those injured.
