4 Rohingyas detained at airport

Armed Police Battalion (APBn) held four Rohingyas at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka while they were all set to fly to Indonesia yesterday.

The detainees are Anwar, 30, Marijan, 23, Rokeya, 19, and Amena Begum, 26. All of them fled Myanmar's Rakhine State and took shelter at Rohingya refugee camp at Cox's Bazar in 2017, said Abdur Rahman, assistant superintendent of police at APBn.

The anti-human trafficking cell of APBn found suspicious behaviour among the four Rohingyas and started questioning them. When they were asked about their home addresses, upazilas and others, they could not respond properly. At one point of the interrogation, they admitted that they were Rohingyas, Abdur Rahman added.

“Indonesia is actually their transit. They wanted to go to Malaysia,” he said, adding that the passports they were carrying mentioned they hailed from Comilla, Feni and Dhaka.

“We have informed the matter to the higher authorities. They [Rohingyas] will be sent back to the Rohingya camp, but a high-level committee will be formed to investigate how the Rohingyas have been able to obtain Bangladeshi passports,” the ASP said.

Over one million Rohingyas, including 740,000 who fled to Bangladesh after a military crackdown in late 2017, are living in Cox's Bazar.