Bangladesh News

Around 20 thousand Rohingya refugees have been included in the updated voter list in six upazilas of Cox’s Bazar while thousands of eligible voters left out for allegiance to the opposition parties, locals and different political parties alleged.
The district election officials recently admitted to The Daily Star that a large number of Rohingyas might have been enrolled as voters.

Additional Election Officer SM Shahadat Hosain said they are verifying the list and have already excluded many such names from it.

Shoaibur Rahman, joint secretary of Relief and Refugee Repatriation Commission, also did not rule out the possibility of many Rohingyas’ names being on the voter roll.

“There are at least 3,00,000 Rohingyas living illegally in different areas of Cox’s Bazar district. I guess many of them have been put on the list,” Rahman told The Daily Star yesterday.

District administration officials said they had prepared a list that says as of July last year the number of Rohingya refugees totalled 50,525. Since then, many more might have crossed the border into Bangladesh.

The actual number of Rohingyas in the area would be much higher and it is very difficult to identify them as they have been assimilated into the local people. It is likely that they have been included as voters on instructions from a section of political leaders, explained the officials.

Teknaf Upazila Nirbahi Officer (UNO) Mohsin Chowdhury said as Teknaf and Ukhiya upazilas share borders with Myanmar, it is much easier for the Rohingyas to enter the Bangladesh territory here.

A committee has been formed to trace Rohingyas on the updated voter list, official sources at the upazilas said.

Sources claimed that in Teknaf, Ukhiya and Ramu upazilas, at least 20 thousand Rohingya refugees have been included in the voter list. The number of female Rohingya voters is higher than that of the males, they said.

In Chakoria, Maheshkhali and Cox’s Bazar Sadar, the number of Rohingya refugees on the list might have exceeded 7,000 mark, the sources claimed.

A Daily Star investigation found that the number of voters in the constituency of a state minister marks a significant rise.

District Awami League (AL) General Secretary Shalauddin Ahamed alleged that over 10,000 loyalists of his party were left out of the list.

Zafar Alam, chairman of Chakoria Municipality, and Abdur Rahman Bodi, chairman of Teknaf Municipality, alleged that BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami leaders had influenced the enumerators to enrol a large number of Rohingyas in the voter list.

Teknaf upazila BNP President Mostaque Ahmed Chowdhury said a small number Rohingyas might have been included as voters, but the number is not as big as claimed by the opposition leaders.

Maheshkhali upazila AL President Anwar Pasha said that some 8,000 supporters of his party were dropped from the updated voter list.

For instance, he named some Rohingyas who have been registered as voters. They are Noor Mohammed, Ali Ullah, Ziaur Rahman, Nurul Amin, Mohammed Taher, Mohammed Idris and Shajeda Begum.

He said he has lodged a complaint with the local election officer in this regard.

Asrafa Yusuf, a housewife and a voter in Ukhiya, said none of her family members was included in the voter list although they had filled in the forms designated for inclusion in the roll.

Abdur Rahim, president of Ukhiya Press Club, also claimed that none of his family members has been registered as voters.

Helenaz Tahera, commissioner of Cox’s Bazar Poursabha, complained that many of his relatives have been left out of the updated roll.

The additional election officer of the district said about 80 per cent of the work has already been completed and a total of 1,834 assistant officers, mostly primary school teachers, were engaged in the process.

A total of 1,25,183 people have been listed as voters whereas 7,408 names were corrected and 5, 979 deleted, he added.

Number of newly listed voters stands at 1,79,880 in Cox’s Bazar district, raising the number of voters to 11.20 lakh from 10,28,399 in the list prepared in 2001.