DEPARTMENT of Immigration and Passport has expressed concern over availing Bangladeshi passport by Rohingya. A section of human traffickers with the help of local politicians and law enforcers are allegedly behind the illegal passport procurement. News media reported that law enforcement and intelligence agencies arrested 15 Rohingyas in Dhaka, Rajshahi and Chuadanga in the past two years while they tried to go abroad and rescued 24 others from a hideout in Dhaka during their training to pretend as Bangladeshi for obtaining passport. Police have started investigations into a number of cases on allegations of involvement of Bangladeshis in training up Rohingya teenagers and women.
Following the latest influx that began on August 25, 2017, the government took many decisions including stopping of the birth certificate issuance in Cox’s Bazar but the officials said Rohingyas were collecting birth certificates from different districts to get Bangladesh passports. Apart from forged documents, Rohingyas were being trained up by some Bangladeshi families there to pretend to be Bangladeshis. The Cox’s Bazar passport office withheld over 280 applications since August 2017 on suspicion. The police investigators said that they found Bangladeshi brokers imparting training to the Rohingya girls before bringing them to Dhaka from Cox’s Bazar camps. On May 10, the Detective Branch of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police detained 24 Rohingya suspects from Khilkhet and seized 54 Bangladeshi passports. To arrest the trend, the passport department collected bio-metric data of 11, 18,578 Rohingyas.
Obtaining Bangladeshi passport by Rohingya is a high security breach. It’s also a threat for Bangladeshi labour market abroad. Already dozens of Rohingyas have been arrested in Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries for cheating and other crimes. It’s the law enforcement agencies’ duty to bust such training centers for Rohingyas. It’s impossible to get police clearance by the Rohingyas, if it is not managed bribing the police. The government must take all necessary measures so that the Rohingyas can avail the green passport by no means.
