Some officials at the Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) are involved in forging documents, like birth certificates for the Rohingyas, the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) says after arresting six people from Narayanganj on charges of helping Rohingyas refugees obtain Bangladeshi passports.
The arrests were made on Wednesday (Sept 11) during a raid, when a huge amount of birth certificates and materials to forge documents were seized from three shops next to the regional passport office.
The seized materials also include seals for birth certificates and hard disks with soft copies of the certificates.
The elite police unit said then the six had confessed to helping 13 Rohingya refugees obtain Bangladeshi passports.
They were also helping convicts flee abroad by making them passports with fake identities.
“The ring, which the six belong to, have been long involved in making forged documents like birth certificates in collusion with some unscrupulous officials at the Dhaka North City Corporation. They were also trying to help obtain Rohingyas Bangladeshi passports,” said Superintendent Mahiuddin Faruque of Narayanganj-based RAB-2.
The top DNCC official, however, said they were not aware of any such allegations until Bangla Tribune reached for comments.
“I didn’t hear of any such thing. However, if it turns out to be true, then we will not only take departmental actions but sack those involved and press criminal charges,” said DNCC Chief Executive Officer Abdul Hye.
The RAB, however, says that evidences are yet to point involvement of passport officials in Narayanganj.
“But we are keeping a close eye. Seals of local elected representatives, like councillors and UP members are also used to for these documents. We are investigating over their suspected involvement in forged document as well,” said Superintendent Faruque, the company commander of RAB-2.
The Narayanganj passport office says that they verify an applicant’s finger prints with government database of Rohingyas who fled to Bangladesh.
“Our server is integrated with that database. Any finger print is checked against the Rohingya database server. A passport issued only after the police verification report is in,” said Assistant Director Maqsudur Rahman of the Regional Passport Office in Narayanganj.
“We check a person’s birth certificate by putting the ID number and date of birth in the online database,” he added.
Thousands of Rohingyas, forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals, have obtained Bangladeshi passports illegally with the help of some dishonest administrative officials to travel abroad, according to media reports.
Many stateless Rohingya individuals had already gone abroad with Bangladeshi passports while a large number of Rohingyas have been actively trying to go abroad using Bangladeshi passports.
Although the government holds no data on the exact number of false passports in circulation, former Expatriates Welfare Minister Nurul Islam said in April 2018 that about 250,000 Rohingyas had gone abroad with Bangladeshi passports.