Rohingyas given NIDs, passports on forged docs

During the Rohingya influx in 2017, a girl along with her family moved to a refugee camp in Cox's Bazar from Maungdaw, a town in Rakhine state of Myanmar.

Her family was trying to get a passport and have Amira, now 14, sent to Saudi Arabia where a relative resides.

Amira is not her real name. The Daily Star is not disclosing her name as she is underage.

The family first contacted Rohingya brokers in Cox's Bazar who communicated with brokers in Dhaka's Agargaon passport office.

The brokers in Dhaka stole the identity of a 21-year-old woman in Ishwarganj of Mymensingh and made Amira impersonate the woman.

On February 18, Amira underwent the passport application process, submitting her photo and biometric information. She was scheduled to get her passport on March 12.

But the Detective Branch of Dhaka Metropolitan Police uncovered the fraud.

The DB arrested 23 suspects, including Ansar members and Rohingyas, of a racket that helped Rohingyas and repeat offenders get passports through identity theft and forgery, DB chief Harun or Rashid told a press briefing at the DMP Media Centre yesterday.

The gang has been involved in this fraudulence since 2019, and had 143 passports issued to Rohingyas and criminals over the last three months, said the DB chief.

The racket used to take Tk 5,000-12,000 for a stolen or fake birth certificate, Tk 25,000 for an NID, and Tk 1.20 lakh for a passport.

Asked about the lapses in the verification process at the passport office, the Election Commission's NID wing and the Special Branch of police, Harun said they would investigate whether any government officers are linked.

Several teams of DB's Lalbagh Division arrested them at Agargaon, Mohammadpur, Jatrabari, and Badda in the capital, Tangail and Cox's Bazar between February 23 and 25.

The DB also seized 17 passports, 13 NIDs, five computers, three printers, and 24 mobile phones, which contain soft documents and delivery slips of hundreds of passports.

The arrestees are Rohingyas "Amira", Morijan, and Rashidul; Rohingya brokers Ayub Ali and Mostakim; Ansar members Jamsedul Islam and Raihan; brokers in Dhaka Raju Sheikh, Shaon Hossain Niloy, Feroz Hossain, Tushar Mia, Shahjahan Sheikh, Shariful Alam, Zobair Molla, Shimul Sheikh, Ahmed Hossain, Masud Alam, Abdul Alim, Masud Rana, Fazle Rabbi Shawon, Rajab Kumar Das Dipto, Al Amin, and Sohag.

They are on a five-day remand.

HOW THE GANG WORKS

A group takes Rohingyas from Cox's Bazar, Bandarban, Khagrachhari to Dhaka. Another prepares birth certificates and NIDs for them. Then another group works for getting the passports delivered and Ansar members at passport offices help them in the process, said the DB chief.

Harun said the arrestees used addresses of various districts, including Narayanganj, Mymensingh, Rangpur, Shariatpur, Gopalganj, Barishal, and Dhaka, in their fake birth certificates and NIDs.

Raju Sheikh, one of the brokers who used to be a labourer at Karwan Bazar, now owns several flats and plots, investigators said.

Raju told investigators that every day at least 10-15 people seek passports at his shop, which helps applicants fill the forms.

He added that they file passport applications for two-three Rohingyas along with every 10 genuine applications.

They also trained the Rohingyas so that they could at least pronounce their names in Bangla properly and write at least the first letter of their names while signing documents, he added.

Another arrestee said a man named Ashraf from Dhaka's Uttara provided them with birth certificates.

The DB chief said Bangladesh has a comprehensive database on Rohingyas, digital birth certificate data, and a smart NID data bank containing various information, including biometrics and images. By ensuring a thorough cross-verification of all the data, passport offices could significantly reduce the occurrence of such fraudulent activities, he added.