July 2, 2013 Dhaka Tribune
Kailash Sarkar
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| Rohingya children are seen at a refugee camp in Myanmar Photo- Reuters |
There are around 30,000 registered Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh
Left with limited choices because of their ‘statelessness’, many
Rohingyas living in the country have chosen to live outside the law by
paving the way for a section of people on both sides of the
Bangladesh-Myanmar border to reap rich illegal dividends.
They are getting increasingly involved with various criminal activities, including cross-border trading of drugs and firearms, helping them to be smuggled in and out of the country.
A number of Rohingyas assuming the identities of Bangladeshis, with doctored passports and documentations, are also going abroad, especially to the Middle East.
According to sources, unscrupulous officials at the passports and immigration departments and recruiting agencies, and their local agents in Cox’s Bazar, ‘help’ Rohingyas move out of the country.
They are also helped to move in illegally, through the border shared with Myanmar.
In the last year, the members of Armed Police Battalion (APBn), Detective Branch (DB), Immigration Police, Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) and Coast Guard arrested several thousand Rohingyas from Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka, at different border crossing points and from various other places.
Of them, more than 400 were arrested at Dhaka airport as they attempted to flee overseas using fake Bangladeshi passports.
Abdullah Aref, the superintendent of police (SP), told the Dhaka Tribune that they arrested several hundred Rohingyas – mostly female – during their attempts to travel abroad using Bangladeshi passports.
“Most of them were heading towards Middle Eastern countries,” said Aref, who is also the commanding officer of the APBn at the Dhaka airport.
He stressed about finding the people responsible for assisting the shams from “within” the system. “It is important to find the people who are involved in the process of supplying Bangladeshi passports to those who are not Bangladeshi nationals.”
Md Iqbal, a senior assistant superintendent of APBn, said they also arrested many Bangladeshis along with the Rohingyas trying to leave the country illegally.
“Apart from these arrests, we also collected detailed information on many brokers who assist Rohingyas to go abroad, usually for a fee between Tk150,000 and 300,000,” he added.
While talking to the Dhaka Tribune, Ashiq Sayeed, the special superintendent at the passport section of the Special Branch, said, “Irregularities in police verification (necessary before issuing a passport) are nothing new. It has been going on for a long time.”
Major Gen. Aziz Ahmed, director general of BGB, described the BGB’s part in the affair. “Some 11,386 Rohingya people were detained in the last two-and-a-half years, and millions of Yaba tablets were seized as they were being smuggled from Myanmar.”
Sources said, Rohingyas are often given tempting promises of a better life by the unscrupulous manpower agents, who maintain close ties with the officials at the government’s departments of passports and immigration.
The Rohingyas are a Muslim people with roots in the Arakan state of western Myanmar. Because of persistent sectarian violence in the region, they started fleeing to Bangladesh in 1978, until their entrance was restricted over a decade ago.
There are around 30,000 registered Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, living in abject conditions in two refugee camps at the Teknaf upazila of Cox’s Bazar. But about half a million unregistered Rohingyas are believed to be living in different parts of Chittagong.
Around 800,000 Rohingyas live in Myanmar.
They are getting increasingly involved with various criminal activities, including cross-border trading of drugs and firearms, helping them to be smuggled in and out of the country.
A number of Rohingyas assuming the identities of Bangladeshis, with doctored passports and documentations, are also going abroad, especially to the Middle East.
According to sources, unscrupulous officials at the passports and immigration departments and recruiting agencies, and their local agents in Cox’s Bazar, ‘help’ Rohingyas move out of the country.
They are also helped to move in illegally, through the border shared with Myanmar.
In the last year, the members of Armed Police Battalion (APBn), Detective Branch (DB), Immigration Police, Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) and Coast Guard arrested several thousand Rohingyas from Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka, at different border crossing points and from various other places.
Of them, more than 400 were arrested at Dhaka airport as they attempted to flee overseas using fake Bangladeshi passports.
Abdullah Aref, the superintendent of police (SP), told the Dhaka Tribune that they arrested several hundred Rohingyas – mostly female – during their attempts to travel abroad using Bangladeshi passports.
“Most of them were heading towards Middle Eastern countries,” said Aref, who is also the commanding officer of the APBn at the Dhaka airport.
He stressed about finding the people responsible for assisting the shams from “within” the system. “It is important to find the people who are involved in the process of supplying Bangladeshi passports to those who are not Bangladeshi nationals.”
Md Iqbal, a senior assistant superintendent of APBn, said they also arrested many Bangladeshis along with the Rohingyas trying to leave the country illegally.
“Apart from these arrests, we also collected detailed information on many brokers who assist Rohingyas to go abroad, usually for a fee between Tk150,000 and 300,000,” he added.
While talking to the Dhaka Tribune, Ashiq Sayeed, the special superintendent at the passport section of the Special Branch, said, “Irregularities in police verification (necessary before issuing a passport) are nothing new. It has been going on for a long time.”
Major Gen. Aziz Ahmed, director general of BGB, described the BGB’s part in the affair. “Some 11,386 Rohingya people were detained in the last two-and-a-half years, and millions of Yaba tablets were seized as they were being smuggled from Myanmar.”
Sources said, Rohingyas are often given tempting promises of a better life by the unscrupulous manpower agents, who maintain close ties with the officials at the government’s departments of passports and immigration.
The Rohingyas are a Muslim people with roots in the Arakan state of western Myanmar. Because of persistent sectarian violence in the region, they started fleeing to Bangladesh in 1978, until their entrance was restricted over a decade ago.
There are around 30,000 registered Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, living in abject conditions in two refugee camps at the Teknaf upazila of Cox’s Bazar. But about half a million unregistered Rohingyas are believed to be living in different parts of Chittagong.
Around 800,000 Rohingyas live in Myanmar.
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