Fake NID for Rohingyas: 2 accused sent to jail

A court in Chattogram yesterday sent two accused of the case over national identity (NID) forgery involving Rohingyas to jail after they surrendered before the court on completion of their four-week bail secured from the High Court.

The accused are Shagar Chowdhury and Satya Sundor De, said court sources. The duo were data entry operators of Election Commission (EC) in Dhaka.

Additional Deputy Commissioner (ADC) (prosecution) Mohammed Kamruzzaman of Chattogram Metropolitan Police (CMP) said the duo surrendered before the court of Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Osman Gani, and the court sent them to jail.

Earlier, they secured four weeks’ bail from the HC in connection with the case, he added.

Investigators of Counter Terrorism (CT) of CMP said Shagar and Satya had been absconding since the case was filed with Kotwali Police Station on September 17. They have passwords of different servers of EC, and using the passwords they entered dubious data of Rohingyas into the server and printed the cards, added CT officials who investigated the case.

On September 15, ACC found that using official devices, several syndicates provided Bangladeshi NID to Rohingyas through forgery, in exchange of huge sums of money. ACC said several laptops of EC -- directly connected to NID server -- were stolen and EC has no official data about the missing laptops yet.

Police and passport officials said some Rohingyas were making Bangladeshi passports using forged NID cards with the help of some locals and Rohingya brokers.

The Rohingyas were using fake names and addresses while applying for the identification documents.