‘Issuing birth certificates to Rohingyas’: Arrest warrant issued against Sunamganj mayor

A Sunamganj court has issued arrest warrants against five persons including Sunamganj Municipality Mayor Nader Bakht in a case filed over issuing birth certificates to Rohingyas in 2019.

The four others are the municipality's former councillor Hossain Ahmed Rasel, Assistant Tax Collector Pijush Kanti Talukdar, Birth-Death Registrar Md Selim Uddin and Sunamganj District Bar Advocate Kawsar Alam, reports our Sylhet correspondent.

On April 4, 2019, a Rohingya man and a woman came to Sunamganj District Passport Office to apply for a Bangladeshi passport and on suspicion, passport officials informed the matter to police.

On information, police arrested the duo and four others for helping the Rohingyas in getting passports and recovered several documents including Sunamganj Municipality's birth certificate from their possession.

On the same day, Sub-inspector Jinnatul Islam Talukdar filed a case with Sunamganj Sadar Police Station accusing the four -- Md Forhad Ahmed, Nur Hossain, Jashim Uddin and Amir Uddin, and sent the Rohingyas to a camp in Cox's Bazaar.

After investigating the matter of issuing the birth certificates, police pressed charges on October 21 last year in which the investigation officer also accused Sunamganj Municipality Mayor Nader Bakht, former councillor and then panel mayor Hossain Ahmed Rasel and three others.

In the charge-sheet, the investigation officer stated that the five persons including the municipality mayor were involved in issuing the birth certificates to the Rohingyas and the lawyer of Sunamganj Court attested the birth certificates.

Accepting the charge-sheet, Sunamganj Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Kudrat-e-Elahi issued the arrest warrant against the five on Wednesday, said Ashek Suja Mamun, inspector of the court.

On January 16 municipality polls, Nader Bakht was re-elected as Sunamganj municipality mayor as a candidate of Awami League.