Sadia Sultana Sathi of Ishwarganj, Mymensingh. This housewife has no dream of going abroad as a profession. No passport either. Housewife Sadia Sultana was targeted by members of broker ring and collected her NID card. Passport of Rohingya girl Umm Salima from Cox's Bazar was created using her photo, address and NID card.
The intelligence department of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) has informed this information after the arrest of 23 members of a powerful fraudster who made illegal birth certificates, national identity cards and passports of illegally stained criminals and Rohingyas.
According to DB Police, a group of Dalal Chakra is active in collecting NID cards of ordinary men including ordinary women like Sadia Sultana. NID card is illegally generated in other person's name after collection. Rohingya men and women, brokers and 2 Ansar members are among those arrested along with huge documents and devices.
The fraud gang operates in three stages in this process. Fake birth certificate, NID card with that. And with that, passports are being made illegally for Rohingya citizens and other accused persons.
Additional Commissioner (DB) Harun Or Rashid gave this information at a press conference organized at DMP Media Center on Minto Road in the capital on Monday (February 26) afternoon.
He said that several teams of Dhaka Metropolitan Detective Lalbagh Division conducted a series of raids in Agargaon, Mohammadpur, Jatrabari and Badda of the capital and arrested 3 Rohingya men and women and 10 Bangladeshis along with a large amount of passport related documents, passports and computers on February 23.
Analyzing the documents collected by them, two Ansar members and 8 Rohingya and Bengali brokers were arrested in series of raids in Cox's Bazar, Tangail and Dhaka on 25th February day and night.
A total of 17 passports, 13 NIDs, 5 computers, 3 printers, 24 mobile phones and hundreds of passport related documents were seized from the custody of the arrested.
The arrested Rohingyas are Umme Salima alias Samira, Morijan and Rashidul. Rohingya broker Ayub Ali and Mostakim. Two members of Ansar are Jamsedul Islam and Md. Raihan. The local brokers are Raju Sheikh, Shaon Hossain alias Niloy, Feroz Hossain and Tushar Mia.
The other brokers arrested for opening computer shops in Agargaon, Mohammadpur, Uttara are Shahjahan Sheikh, Shariful Alam, Jobair Mollah, Shimul Sheikh, Ahmed Hossain, Masud Alam, Abdul Alim, Masud Rana, Fazle Rabbi Shawon, Rajab Kumar Das Deepta. , Al-Amin and Mohammad Sohag.
This powerful gang makes birth certificates, NIDs and passports for Rohingya children, women and men from Myanmar for lakhs of takas.
A team of the arrested circle collected interested Rohingyas from Cox's Bazar, Bandarban, Khagrachari and brought them to Dhaka. Another group prepares birth certificates, NIDs for them. Finally, the other group arranged express, super express money deposit, biometrics and photo taking in various regional passport offices including Dhaka through Ansar members.
They charge Tk. 5000 to Tk. 12000 for birth certificate within six hours. He initially admitted that he takes Tk. 25 thousand to get the NID done within three days and Tk. 1 lakh to Tk. 1.5 lakh to make the passport.
The detective chief said that relevant soft documents and delivery slips of hundreds of passports were found on the mobile phones of the arrested brokers. Out of which they have already provided 143 passports made for Rohingyas in the last three months. Since 2019, the gang has reportedly issued thousands of passports to Rohingyas, Bangladeshi tainted criminals with different names and addresses.
Harun said that the arrestees used addresses in Dhaka, Narayanganj, Mymensingh, Rangpur, Shariatpur, Gopalganj and Barishal districts to create birth certificates and NIDs and make passports based on them.
He said that Bangladesh, which has gone a long way in technology practice, has Rohingya data, digital birth certificate data, smart NID data bank where various information including biometrics, pictures are stored. Anyone can deposit money, provide biometrics and take photos for passports at the passport office through brokers on the basis of arbitrary documents without any verification of this information. Non-Bangladeshis including Rohingyas can be identified only by verifying Rohingya data, digital birth certificate data and smart NID data immediately for making national sovereignty commemorative passports.
In the case of passport, SB police does verification work. Then why not caught? If you want to know, Harun said, how will you be caught? After handing over birth certificate, NID to a person, when he gives passport on emergency basis, the police see the mobile number. If you contact that number, he will tell you everything, because he has been taught everything. In many cases the police go to the existing contract. Rohingya citizen gives permanent address in Cox's Bazar but uses current address.
Ansar members are working in hospitals and government service institutions with passports. There are allegations of cheating against them by conniving with brokers. When asked, you have also arrested two Ansar members. When asked whether they will be investigated, Harun said, "I am investigating whether anyone else is involved." We will inform the higher authorities of Ansar.