By MUKTADIR RASHID 23 September 2019
The total for 2019 represents a major
increase, as a total of 44 Rohingya have been killed since August 2017 in
“gunfights” with law enforcement agencies including police, Bangladesh’s Rapid
Action Battalion and its Border Guard Battalion.
The officer in charge of Teknaf Police
Station, Pradip Kumar Das, said they detained the couple when they were found
in possession of a gun during a raid in the camp intended to recover firearms.
DHAKA—In 2019, as many as 39 Rohingya,
including one woman, have been killed in reported incidents of “gunfights” with
law enforcement and four others were killed in Cox’s Bazar over their suspected
involvement in killings, drug sales, robbery, abductions and human trafficking.
Rohingya Refugees are at gun point in
Bangladesh too: https://t.co/3lcKVyiebN
Official statistics from the Cox’s Bazar
District police headquarters don’t separate data by year but police said that
39 Rohingya have been killed in 2019 alone.
The law enforcement agencies involved, mainly
the police in Teknaf, in Cox’s Bazar, claimed that the gunfights occurred when
suspected criminals opened fire at them.
Rohingya leaders, however, alleged that many
of the deceased had been held or detained and that the “gunfights” in which
they were killed occurred while they were in custody.
“If anyone commits crimes, the suspected
criminals should be punished under the law. Killing is against the law,” Nay
San Lwin, the campaign coordinator at the Free Rohingya Coalition, told The
Irrawaddy.
Bangladeshi Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan
said that despite all efforts to the contrary, some Rohingya had become
involved in smuggling methamphetamine pills known as yaba from Myanmar, in many
cases risking their lives.
He said that exchanges of gunfire may have
happened because the Bangladeshi Border Guard was instructed to guard the
border and prevent any unauthorized people from entering the country.
“Those who have not challenged [law
enforcement agencies] are in jail,” said the minister, adding that Rohingya
were not invited into Bangladesh but have been given shelter to protect their
lives, according to Dhaka-based daily newspaper New Age.
On Saturday night, two more Rohingya—Dil
Mohammad, 32, and Zaheda Begum, 27, a couple from a refugee camp in Teknaf’s
Hnila area—were killed in a “gunfight” with Teknaf police in Cox’s Bazar hours
after they were released from detention.
The officer in charge of Teknaf Police
Station, Pradip Kumar Das, said they detained the couple when they were found
in possession of a gun during a raid in the camp intended to recover firearms.
He said the police exchanged fire with
associates of Dil Mohammed during the raid and in the line of fire the couple
was injured and later declared dead by the district hospital.
Police officials claimed to have recovered
three rifles, eight cartridges and 12 empty cartridges from the spot.
According to the Teknaf police station, at
least 29 locally made weapons have been seized from Rohingya killed during
exchanges of fire or gunfights this year.
Since January, at least four Rohingya have
also been found shot dead in Teknaf. Their deaths have not been connected to
reported shootouts with law enforcement.
On March 26, the police recovered the body of
Mohammad Abu Sayed Prokash, 35, a Rohingya living in Nayapara Refugee Camp in
Teknaf who was suspected of robbery. The police said they found his body after
hearing gunshots.
On August 8, the police in Teknaf said they
recovered the bodies of the wife and brother of suspected Rohingya criminal
Abdul Hakim. His wife, Rubi Akhter, 30 and his brother Kabir Ahmed, 28, were
found in the hilly area of Whykhong in Teknaf. The police claimed at the time
that the murders were the result of an internal feud. The police are still
looking for Abdul Hakim.
“The number of killings is now higher than in
recent years,” Jakaria Alfaz, a Teknaf-based journalist, told The Irrawaddy. “I
had never seen 10 Rohingya killed in a single month, but it happened this
month.”
New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a
statement on Thursday that the killings have “created a climate of intense fear
in the area’s refugee camps.”
It also said that police have killed six
Rohingya refugees who they allege were responsible for the Aug. 22 murder of
Omar Faruk, a local youth leader from the ruling Awami League in Cox’s Bazar.
A senior police official in Cox’s Bazar told
The Irrawaddy that they investigated the case and found that the killing was
over a drug money dispute between Omar Faruk and alleged criminal Nur Mohammad,
an ethnic Rohingya.
Faruk’s murder provoked violence against
Rohingya in some areas. According to Human Rights Watch, one refugee in Camp 27
in Cox’s Bazar said local residents were threatening to kill Rohingya community
members, asking “‘Why don’t you [Rohingya] leave our land?’”
“Instead of quelling the tensions, law
enforcement officers allegedly refused to intervene and protect the refugees
from these attacks,” read the Human Rights Watch statement. The statement also
alleged that authorities engaged in collective punishment and cut off internet
access for refugees, ordering telecommunications companies not to sell refugees
SIM cards or phone service. Law enforcement claimed this was necessary to
prevent criminal activity.
“The Bangladesh government is navigating a
precarious security environment in Cox’s Bazar, heightened by the influx of
700,000 Rohingya refugees since the Myanmar government’s ethnic cleansing
campaign since late 2017. But every measure should be a proportionate response
to specific risks and ensure the protection of basic rights,” read the
statement.
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Don’t forget to read more below:
UN FFM Report: 600,000 Rohingya still in
Myanmar at 'serious risk of genocide': https://lnkd.in/grp4Gvg
Can China Able to Help Find a Durable
Solution for the Rohingya Refugees Crisis? https://lnkd.in/g6qy_qK