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The High Court on Tuesday asked the Election Commission and the government authorities to investigate and submit reports on how many Rohingyas were enrolled as voters across the country and obtained other documents relating to citizenship. 

The court asked the EC, the Local Government Division secretary, the registrar general of the Office of the Registrar General, Birth and Death Registration, the deputy commissioner of Cox’s Bazar, and 13 other government authorities to submit the probe report by August 8.

The bench of Justice Naima Haider and Justice Kazi Zinat Hoque issued the directive after hearing a supplementary petition filed by Mohammad Hamid, a resident of Cox’s Bazar.

The petitioner on April 24 challenged the legality of enrolling Rohingyas in the voters’ list and issuing birth certificates to Rohingya children with fake addresses and documents in the Edgaon union of Cox’s Bazar Sadar.

Hamid filed a fresh petition on Tuesday seeking the number of Rohingyas who were enrolled as voters and obtained other documents relating to citizenship across the country.

The fresh petition follows media reports suggesting Rohingyas obtained birth certificates through fake addresses from local authorities across the country.

The police have detected 49 Rohingya individuals who obtained Bangladeshi passports through birth certificates obtained from Dhaka North City Corporation illegally with fake addresses, according to a recent report prepared by the Special Branch of Police.  

Earlier, the same High Court bench, after hearing Hamid’s writ petition filed in April, had asked the deputy commissioner of Cox’s Bazar to investigate how many Rohingyas were given citizenship as Bangladeshi nationals and were enrolled as voters in Cox’s Bazar.

The High Court asked the local government division secretary, the election commission secretary, the deputy commissioner of Cox’s Bazar, and the district superintendent of police to submit the investigation report to the court by June 6.

The High Court had also asked the government authorities to remove 370 Rohingyas from the list of voters of the Eidgaon union in Cox’s Bazar.

On behalf of Cox’s Bazar deputy commissioner, deputy attorney general Amit Das Gupta sought time to submit a complete probe report and remove 370 Rohingyas from the voter list in Eidgaon. 

Appearing for the writ petitioner, lawyer Siddique Ullah Mia told the High Court that 370 Rohingyas took national identity cards through forged documents.

Siddique cited a report of local upazila nirbahi officer, which found that the Rohingyas had illegally obtained citizenship documents like birth registration certificates and national identity cards since 2016 through forgeries in connivance with the local chairman and some influential public representatives.

He said that there were many allegations of Rohingyas getting birth registration cards, NIDs to enroll as voters in Cox’s Bazar and other places across the country, but the local administration and public representatives did not take action to cancel the forged documents of Rohingyas.

On June 5, the Office of the Registrar General for Birth and Death Registration, in a letter to DNCC, said that it had already suspended the birth certificates of Rohingyas upon a request from the Special Branch of the police.

It directed the DNCC officials involved to appear in person before the BDRIS office within five working days to provide explanations.

In a letter issued to the Birth and Death Registration office on May 26, the passport wing of the Special Branch of the police said that they had prepared a list of 102 Rohingya individuals who had recently gotten Bangladeshi passports by providing birth certificates managed from various parts of Bangladesh with fake addresses.  

The letter stated that upon receiving information, the police conducted further inquiries into the matter and found that these Rohingya individuals had fraudulently obtained birth certificates with the assistance of dishonest government officials, local public representatives, and organised rackets.

The letter asked BDRIS to suspend the certificates and take the necessary actions. 

The Registrar General of Birth and Death Registration office, Md Zahid Hossain, an additional secretary, noted that these birth certificates were primarily issued in 2022 and at the start of 2023. 

‘We are investigating the issues, and then we can determine exactly what happened,’ he said.

In addition to the DNCC areas, the illegal certificates were also issued from Damodarpur union parishad in Rangpur, Charkaowa union parishad in Barishal Sadar, and Gotapara union parishad under Bagerhat Sadar, according to the SB report.

Refugee Relief and Repatriation commissioner Mohammed Mizanur Rahman said that a Rohingya child born in either a hospital or a Rohingya camp is registered as a Rohingya child in the designated camp.

However, Rohingya children are not eligible for any birth certificates from the Bangladeshi authorities.

According to media reports, thousands of Rohingyas have used illegally obtained Bangladeshi passports to travel abroad for work.

Saudi Arabian authorities on May 12, 2024, wanted a faster renewal of 69,000 Bangladeshi passports issued to Rohingya people over the years, prompting the Bangladesh authorities to seek six more months for the necessary steps.

A six-member Saudi delegation, headed by the kingdom’s deputy interior minister Nasser bin Abdulaziz Al-Daoud, flagged the issue once again during a bilateral meeting with a Bangladeshi delegation, headed by home minister Asaduzzaman Khan, in Dhaka.

This was the second such meeting between Bangladesh and Saudi authorities over the renewal of 69,000 Bangladeshi passports in less than two years.

In November 2022, the Saudi deputy interior minister visited Dhaka and raised the same issue with the home ministry.

Bangladesh officials told ¶¶Òõ¾«Æ· that the Saudi authorities had threatened to deport thousands of people to Bangladesh if their Bangladeshi passports were not renewed.

Home minister Asaduzzaman Khan told reporters that a number of Rohingyas using Bangladeshi passports had gone to Saudi Arabia since the mid-1970s, and their passports needed to be renewed.