‘Not a single Rohingya managed to obtain NID’

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Bangla Tribune Report
Published : 21:16, Sep 16, 2019 | Updated : 21:41, Sep 16, 2019

Mohammad Saidul Islam, director general of the Election Commission’s National Identity Registration Wing, speaks to media at the EC’s Agargaon office in Dhaka on Monday (Sept 16)None of over the 1.1 million Rohingyas living in the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar has managed to get enlisted in Bangladesh’s electoral roll, says the top the national ID registration official.
“Not a single Rohingya has managed to obtain a national ID (NID) card. The Election Commission has all the biometric details, including fingerprints, of the Rohingyas in its server. It’s not possible for Rohingyas to enlist as voters,” said Mohammad Saidul Islam, director general of the Election Commission’s National Identity Registration Wing.
Islam was speaking to media at the EC’s Agargaon office in Dhaka on Monday (Sept 16).
His remarks came amid reports of recent arrests of several Rohingyas in possession of NID and Bangladeshi passport from different places of the country.
Denying the claim on Rohingyas becoming the voters, the EC official said that several Rohingyas tried to do so but they failed.
Islam said, “While updating the voter list, data in the EC’s servers are uploaded after completing some special tasks.
“Later eligible people are enlisted as the voter only after cross-checking fingerprints. If any person’s details are found incomplete then that specific account is put on hold,” he added.
Islam said one Lucky Begum, presumed to be a Rohingya, was handed over to police after she was caught while collecting the NID card.
Later, the commission formed a probe panel and found that data of as many as 46 people are incomplete, said Islam.
Citing that all the Rohingyas living in Bangladesh have gone through biometric screening, he said they cross-checked the data from the EC’s servers and that of Rohingyas.
“They [Rohingyas] have been attempting [to enlist as voters] but they won’t succeed,” the EC official assured.
A total of 32 Upazilas around Cox’s Bazar has been declared as ‘special zones’, EC Additional Secretary Mokhlesur Rahman said before adding the probe panel have found the involvement of an employee at Chattogram’s Daboul Mooring Election Office.
Criminal charges will be pressed against the employee, he said before adding “Further probes would be carried out to find out the others involved.”
Additional Secretary Rahman, however, said the election office employee “only attempted” to obtain a fake NID but did not succeed.

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