Rohingya NID scam: Personal assistant of EC employee placed on 1-day remand

A Chattogram court today placed a man on a one-day remand in a case filed over providing Rohingya refugees with National Identification (NID) cards.

Chattogram Metropolitan Magistrate Mehnaz Rahman passed the remand order against Md Jafar alias Shwapan (38) after police produced him before the court today, reports our Chattogram correspondent.

"Jafar is the personal assistant of arrested Election Commission office assistant Joynal and he had been working for Joynal since 2015. He [Jafar] used to bring Rohingyas who needed Bangladeshi NIDs to Joynal through brokers, for which Joynal paid him Tk30,000 every month," said Investigation Officer of the case Inspector Sanjoy Sinha.

Earlier, Jafar was arrested by members of the Counter-Terrorism (CT) division of Chattogram Metropolitan Police (CMP) from Iswarganj upazila of Mymensingh last night.

Jafar told investigators that brokers Najib Ullah and Absar Ullah used to connect him with Rohingyas, who he took to Joynal's residence to make NID cards. Joynal used to collect the fingerprints and photos of the Rohingyas at his home and later uploaded those to the NID server through the designated Election Commission devices.

Jafar's name first came up while interrogating Najib Ullah and Absar Ullah after they were arrested in April of this year.