NID for Rohingyas: Three more Election Commission staff arrested

The counter-terrorism unit of Chattogram Metropolitan Police today arrested three more Election Commission employees in a case filed over providing national identity (NID) cards to Rohingyas. 

The arrestees are Md Shahin from Kotowali election office, Pabel Barua from Double Mooring election office and Zahid Hasan from Bandar election office. 

All of them had been working with the election commission as data entry operators. 

On Sunday at around 12:00pm, police picked up four Election Commission officials from their office for interrogation. 

The counter-terrorism unit today confirmed that they have released one of the detainees and that they will produce the other three before the court. 

Munir Hussain Khan, Chattogram District Election officer, said that the detained staff were working as data entry operators in the Chattogram election commission office. 

Under a government project, around 1,100 persons have been recruited as data entry operators at Election Commission offices across the country on outsourcing basis for updating the voter list. Among these, 41 persons were recruited for the Chattogram office.

Rajesh Barua, an inspector of the counter-terrorism unit and the investigation officer of the case, said, "After quizzing them, we have arrested three of the detainees and released another named Fahmida Akhter as we did not find her involvement in the NID forgery for Rohingyas."

Earlier, three election commission employees and a sister of one of the staff were arrested in the same case. The arrestees were Joynal Abedin, election office assistant, Mostafa Faruk, data entry operator, Bijoy Das, driver, and his sister Sima Das. 

According to police and passport officials, some Rohingya refugees with the help of some locals and Rohingya brokers are making Bangladeshi passports using forged NID cards. They said the Rohingyas were using fake names and addresses while applying for the identification documents.

On September 17, a team from Kotwali police station of the port city raided the house of Election Commission Office Assistant Joynal in the city's Andarkillah area and recovered an official laptop of the commission. Police later filed a case with Kotwali police station in this connection.