Rohingyas who fled to Bangladesh in the face of the Myanmar army's crackdown are getting National Identity Cards (NIDs) by some brokers of Rohingya refugee camps, some Bangladeshi public representatives and some dishonest officials of the Election Commission.
According to sources, several syndicates involved in giving Rohingyas Bangladeshi NIDs. They are divided into several groups and do this fraud.
Broker circles active in Rohingya refugee camps for recruiting Rohingyas from the camps who are interested in getting NID. Then the Bangladeshi brokers produce birth certificates, nationality certificates and other documents. In the last step, NID is created through some officials of the Election Commission.
Thus, Rohingyas are becoming Bangladeshi citizens for Tk 1 lakh to 2 lakh.
Some public representatives, influential political figures and top officials of the Election Commission of Chattogram region have been accused of being involved in this NID fraud.
In the meantime, the Election Commission has started an investigation against one of its senior officials for allegedly being involved in providing NID to the Rohingyas.
Several Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) officials investigating complaints about Rohingya's NID said strong syndicates are involved in supplying NID to Rohingyas. Syndicate members identify Rohingyas by kinship.
They assists Rohingyas in obtaining NID by providing copies of birth certificate, citizen certificate, NID of parents, house utility bills, they said.
An officer of the Counter Terrorism Unit said, “Three groups are working on obtaining NIDs for Rohingyas.”
“A group gathers Rohingyas. Another group creates documents. The last group creates NID,” he added.
ACC investigated five complaints regarding issuance of NIDs to Rohingyas. Several cases have been filed after the allegations were found to be true.
Cases have been filed against various people including office assistants, data entry operators, public representatives of the district election office in Chattogram. Several people have been arrested also.
Deputy Director of ACC Coordinated District Office-2 Atiq Alam said Investigation of the case is ongoing.
“Report is not possible due to lack of some information. Our efforts are to complete the case reporting process as soon as possible,” he said.
Counter Terrorism Unit of Chattogram Metropolitan Police (CMP) is investigating a case in this matter. In the meantime, several people, including three members of the broker group, have been arrested.
Sanjay Sinha, the investigating officer of the case said, "Some information has been requested from the Election Commission to complete the investigation of this case. But due to insufficient information being provided, information has been requested again.”
“If the information is available, the investigation of this case will make significant progress,” he added.
@ This report appeared on the print and online version of Bangladesh Pratidin on Wednesday (September 7) and has been rewritten in English by Tanvir Raihan.
