June 19, 2017
Mizanur Rahman, former National Human Rights Commission chairman of Bangladesh have said that Rohingyas are being used as chess pawns by trans-boundary crime syndicates.
Rahman was commenting on a statement made by the Bangladesh Foreign Minister A.H Mahboob Ali on Thursday that Rohingyas were a potential security threat to Bangladesh.
“But actually they are the pawns of the chess board. The masterminds of the trans-boundary crime syndicate utilise the Rohingya from behind the scene,” he told BenarNews.
“As the Rohingya are stateless, they are hapless. So, they are easily available people to do any types of bad works. They do it for their survival,” Rahman said.
It is well known that criminal syndicates in Bangladesh, often tied to one of the three main political parties have patronised criminal elements from the Rohingya community to carry out illicit activities.
Earlier the Bangladesh Foreign Minister said, “Twenty to 25 percent people in Cox’s Bazar are now Rakhine Muslims. Such huge presence of Rakhine Muslims in the area will pose a threat to the national security in future.”
He added, “The Rakhine people have been engaged in various misdeeds, including drug smuggling on bordering areas and arms and human trafficking. They’ve become a national security concern for Bangladesh.”
The comments by the Bangladesh FM comes at a time when neighbouring country and ally India is also engaged in similar anti Rohingya propaganda.
Ali also did not use the term Rohingya but ‘Rakhine Muslims’, an apparent negotiation with Myanmar that both the term ‘Rohingya’ and ‘Bengali’ will not be used to describe the Muslim community in Northern Arakan.
Myanmar however continues to use the term Bengali to describe the Rohingya people.
