1 held for helping Rohingyas get Bangladeshi NID card from Bandarban
Members of Counter Terrorism (CT) of CMP arrested a man from Naikhongchhari of Bandarban district early today on charge of helping Rohingya refugees obtain Bangladeshi National Identity (NID) cards with help of Election Commission staff.
Md Najib Ullah (31) was shown arrested in a NID scam case filed with Kotwali police station and he gave confessional statements before a magistrate this evening, said Additional Deputy Commissioner (ADC) Asif Mohiuddin of CT.
Court sources said he gave his confessional statement before the Metropolitan Magistrate Shafi Uddin and was sent to jail later.
Inspector Sanjoy Sinha of CT unit told The Daily Star "With the latest arrest, 15 persons were held in NID forgery case so far."
"Three key accused who made confessional statements mentioned the name of Najib Ullah as the Rohingya broker who worked for them from ground level," said Inspector Sanjoy Sinha.
CT sources said Chattogram EC office assistants Joynal, Nasim and Anwar told the investigators that Najib Ullah used to work as broker for Rohingyas in Bandarban and helped them get Bangladeshi NID cards in exchange of a good amount of money.
Court sources, said Najib in his statements cited that he had come to Chattogram in 2018 and got introduced with EC staff Joynal. Najib Ullah worked as Rohingya broker for around two and half months. During that time, he helped around 300 Rohingya refugees to get the Bangladeshi NID cards. Najib Ullah used to get Tk 10,000 per NID.
After the deal, Najib would arrange transportation, food and accomodation for Rohingyas from Bandarban to Chattogram. Apart from this, he also helped Joynal to cover the deadline by taking photos and fingerprints of Rohingya people, said the court sources.
Inspector Sanjoy Sinha said "police gleaned some new names from his confessional statements and they are working on it."
On September 15, 2019 Anti-Corruption Commission found that several syndicates provided Bangladeshi NID cards to Rohingyas through forgery using official devices 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 Rohingya refugees 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. EC officials still cannot say exactly how many Rohingyas have secured the cards through illegal means.
After the incident, Double Mooring Thana Election Officer Pallabi Chakma filed the case accusing five people and several unknown people in connection with the forgery on September 17, 2019.
Comments