Police on Saturday detained two Rohingya women from the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport as they were about to board an international flight using forged Bangladeshi passports. The miscreants, aged 58 years and 63 years, told the authorities they were intending to travel to Saudi Arabia for Umrah on a Kuwait Airlines flight, said SI Zahid Hasan of City Special Branch's Airport Zone, Dhaka Metropolitan Special Branch (SB) Airport Zone SI Zahid Hasan said.
“Their conduct before boarding the plane raised suspicion. They gave erratic answers when questioned by the authorities, leading to their arrests,” he informed. SI Zahid said the two women were being accompanied by an agent who managed to slip past the authorities. The passports carried by the women were forged at some point during the middle of April. The counterfeit passports provided a Chattogram address in one and a Narayanganj address in the other.
Around 1 million Rohingyas are currently taking shelter in refugee camps in Cox's Bazar after escaping persecution in their homeland Myanmar. Despite several measures being taken to prevent them from spreading out, there have been a few reported instances in which they were apprehended outside the camps. The arrest of the two women also sheds light on the shortcomings of the efforts to stop them from getting Bangladeshi passports.
