Rupban, a Rohingya woman, shows a ration card with a picture of her family members at a refugee camp in Kutupalang in Bangladesh.
By Mizan Rahman
Dhaka
Bangladesh has started demolishing illegal Rohingya settlements in forests surrounding the southeastern tourist city of Cox’s Bazar, officials said yesterday.
“We began the drive on June 4 when we demolished 51 dwellings illegally set up by Rohingyas and would continue the eviction and demolition of illegal structures scattered in the forest,” Cox’s Bazar south forest division chief Ali Kabir told newsmen.
The forest department officials said they had conducted the drive at Madhuchhara in Ukhia sub-district on the recommendation of an intelligence agency.
More than 400 personnel from police, Rapid Action Battalion, Border Guard Bangladesh and district administration joined the drive to demolish settlements built reportedly by non-government organisation - Muslim Aid - for Rohingyas, said the officials.
Ali Kabir said, “We do not want to let the people know where and when the next drive will be conducted but it will be conducted with the help of other agencies.”
Mohammad Obaidur Rahman, country director of Muslim Aid UK in Bangladesh, however, said that they had not built any settlements in Madhuchhara area and they had stopped all activities in Cox’s Bazar district since January this year.
The Rohingyas, however, said they got the shelters in Madhuchhara Lambasiya with assistance of Rajapalong union council chairman Jahangir Kabir Chowdhury.
Nazrul Islam, a Rohingya day labourer, said he had lived in the settlement for two months but the sudden drive left him homeless.
“I have nowhere to go,” said Nazrul, who was born in Bangladesh
with Rohingya ethnicity.
After being evicted, he has taken shelter at a relative’s house in Kutupalang.
Locals said the chairman verified the list of Rohingyas and allowed them to be settled there.
But, Jahangir Kabir, also a ruling Awami League leader, denied his involvement in setting up the settlement.
He also said, “I have no idea about the eviction.’
According to the forest department, more than 5,000 hectares out of 44 thousand hectares forest land are currently occupied by different quarters.
Of the 5,00 hectares of occupied land, some 2,700 hectares have been occupied allegedly by the stateless 2,325 Rohingya families, who are not documented by Bangladesh officially, according the forest department. Besides, two unregistered camps shelter 60,000 Rohingyas in Tekhnaf and Ukhia.
“We will try to demolish only the structures built illegally in the areas,” said the forest
department official.
Ali Hossain, deputy commissioner, Cox’s Bazar, however, claimed he had no information of the demolition of any
Rohingya settlements.
“Where did you get the information? You better verify your information,” he said when he was asked why the settlements were demolished without any arrangement for their
rehabilitation.
Earlier, the government planned to relocate 32,713 of the documented Rohingyas, who have spent years in two refugee camps near the Myanmar border, to Hatiya island in the Bay of Bengal.
The United Nations refugee agency has been assisting the refugees in the camps since 1991. An estimated 100,000 Rohingyas are currently living in different locations in Ukhiya and Tekhnaf forests.
“We spotted a number of new settlements amid Rohingya influx,” Kabir said, adding that the forest lands were gradually being occupied.
Border Guard Bangladesh statistics showed that 737 Myanmar nationals were barred from crossing into Bangladesh in May alone.
The Rohingya Muslims fleeing persecution by the Buddhist majority in Myanmar regularly cross into Bangladesh.
A home ministry official said an intelligence agency had found that some Rohingyas had terror links which prompted a “large scale drive” against the settlements around Nayapara,
Kutupalang in Ukhiya and Teknaf.
Another home ministry official said that a recent meeting between India and Bangladesh had discussed the issue of Rohingyas crossing into India as at least five Rohingya terror suspects were arrested by the Indian police recently.
“India had expressed concern over the Rohingya issue,” the
official said.
