17 sued by ACC for providing NID cards to Rohingya refugees

The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) filed two separate cases today against 17 people including election commission staff members, ex-ward councillor of Chattogram City Corporation and former Union Parishad Chairman on charge of helping Rohingyas to get citizenship certificates and Bangladeshi NID cards.

Shuvash Chandra Dutta, Deputy Director (DD) of ACC Headquarters and Sharif Uddin, Deputy Assistant Director (DAD) of ACC's Chattogram Integrated office-2 filed the cases with Chattogram Integrated office-1 and office-2, said the ACC office.

The accused are Joynal Abedin, Md Nur Ahmed, Md Saifuddin Chowdhury, Satya Sundor Dey, Nurul Absar, Nurul Islam, Mohammed Belal Uddin, Md Abdus Salam, Md Azizur Rahman, Lucky alias Ramzan Bibi, her husband Nazir Ahmed, Sarfaraz Qader Rasel, Farhad Hossain Raju, Mohammed Shahjamal, Uttpal Barua, Rantu Barua, Abdul Latif Sheikh.

Among the accused, Abdul Latif Sheikh, Joynal Abedin, Md Nur Ahmed, Md Saifuddin Chowdhury, Satya Sundor Dey, Mohammed Shahjamal, Uttpal Barua, Rantu Barua are staff members of the Election Commission while Nurul Absar is former UP chairman of Mirzapur union parishad of Hathazari and Sarfaraz Qader Rasel is the former ward councillor of South Halishahar ward no-39 of CCC.

DAD Sharif Uddin told The Daily Star that ACC filed the cases as the EC staff and public representative in collaboration with each other helped Rohingya people get Bangladeshi NID card and citizenship documents misusing their official powers and benefits.

DAD Sharif Uddin filed the case against the first 11 accused out of 17 as they helped a Rohingya woman Lucky alias Ramjan Bibi and her two daughters to get Bangladeshi citizenship certificates and birth certificates from Hathazari upazila in 2019.

Her husband Nazir Ahmed is a Saudi expatriate and also has a Bangladeshi NID. Lucky and her two daughters using the forged documents applied for Bangladeshi passports. During the investigation, ACC found that Lucky's data had been uploaded using the official laptop of EC. EC staff Joynal illegally uploaded the data from his residence.

DD's Shuvash Chandra in his case statement said deceased Rohingya robber Nur Alam, who was killed in a shootout in Cox's Bazar, had obtained Bangladeshi NID in collaboration with the CCC ward councillor and EC staff members Mohammed Shahjamal, Uttpal Barua, Rantu Barua and Abdul Latif Sheikh.

Rohingya Nur Alam managed Bangladeshi NID on January 23, 2017. Nur Alam and his wife Nur Kaiyash managed citizenship certificates from CCC's Patenga ward while former councillor Rasel signed the certificates. And the then Panchlaish EC official Abdul Latif Sheikh with the help of other EC employees provided NID card to Nur Alam.