Syndicate helps Rohingyas get NID, passports

Some Rohingya refugees are making Bangladeshi passports with the help of local and Rohingya brokers, who manage all the required documents in exchange of large amount of money, police and passport officials said.

This syndicate collects the National ID card, citizenship certificate, birth registration and police verification from relevant government offices using their link as well as by bribing officials.

Police and passport officials say the Rohingya people are using fake names and addresses while applying for passports.

In the latest such discovery, Chittagong police arrested three Rohingya men with three Bangladeshi passports against their names from the city’s Kattoli area on Thursday night.

The trio, all of whom took shelter in refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar with their families in 2017, were on their way to Dhaka. Two of them got their passports in December 2017, just months after their arrival, and the other in January this year, police said.