C T Online Desk: The Directorate General of Forces Intelligence sued Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army commander-in-chief Ataullah Abu Ammar Jununi and 66 others for killing its officer, Squadron Leader Rizwan Rushdee, and a member of the Rapid Action Battalion during an anti-smuggling drive on the Bangladesh-Myanmar border on November 14.
DGFI’s Cox’s Bazar detachment security assistant sub-inspector Mohammad Anwar Hossain filed the case with the Naikhyangchari police station under Bandarban district on Wednesday, naming Ataullah, 48, and 31 other named and 35 unnamed people on charge of murder, voluntarily causing grievous hurt, causing hurt to deter a public servant from his duty.
Rohingya leader Master Dil Mohammad and Maulavi Arif Ahmed, ARSA commander Ustab Khaled, Maulana Mostafa, Abdur Rahman, Jubayer, Shakher, Kawsar, and Noman Chowdhury are among others named as suspects in the case.
Other names were Jinnat Ullah, Lal Mohammad, Hafiz Nur, Rohim Ullah, and Molvi Aziz.
An official said 17 of the named suspects live on the zero line, while the rest are from different places, including the Ukhia and Kutupalang camps in Cox’s Bazar.
In the complaint, the defence intelligence agency mentioned the Tambru-Konarpara zero line of Gum Dhum in Naikhyangchari as Myanmar national Ataullah’s address.
‘The case is filed, and an investigation into it is underway,’ said Chattogram Range deputy inspector general Anwar Hossain on Friday.
Inspector Shohag Rana, in charge of the Gum Dhum investigation centre, is investigating the case, but no one has been arrested so far, according to Naikhyangchari police inspector (investigation) Mohammad Shah Jahan.
Asked how the suspects would be arrested when they were on zero-line, inspector Shohag Rana told New Age that they had their own technique which they would not share publicly.
The DGFI stated in their complaint that they had lost the identification card of the victim as well as a wireless transceiver.
Of the suspects, Rohingya leader Master Dil Mohammad, who also lives on the zero-line, on Friday, wondered why he was named in the complaint.
‘I was not present even on the spot where the killing happened…I am sure it was a mistake. We always help the Bangladesh government,’ Dil Mohammad told New Age over the phone.
Squadron Leader Rizwan, a helicopter pilot commissioned in June 2013 and deputed to the DGFI, was found killed along the border hours after the RAB and the agency jointly conducted the operation along the Konarpara of the Tambru border.
Several hours after the killing, the Inter Services Public Relations Directorate in their statement said ‘During the clash with drug smugglers, an on-duty DGFI officer [BAF officer] embraced martyrdom by sacrificing his life for the country, and a RAB member was injured.’
Officials in intelligence agencies and the home ministry in Dhaka and Cox’s Bazar blamed an armed group linked to ARSA for the killing of the intelligence official.
Rohingya leaders said one of their community members Sajeda Begum, 20, was also shot dead in the line of fire exchanged that night. However, the police said the case did not mention her killing.
New Rohingya platform Arakan Rohingya National Alliance in a press release on November 21 condemned the killing by ‘criminal drug dealers’ on the Bangladesh-Myanmar border.
ARSA did not release any statement until Friday.
A senior official told New Age that the battalion and DGFI are separately investigating the incident.
The official also confirmed that an order was issued to withdraw Cox’s Bazar RAB-15 commanding officer Lieutenant Colonel Khairul Islam Sarkar, who was the local field commander and deployed force on November 14, and that he was now preparing to return to the army.
According to Inter-Services Public Relations, Rizwan had been serving in the defence intelligence agency since May 16, 2022.
In late October, a confidential report prepared by an intelligence agency suggested that the ARSA is responsible for the recent killings, attacks, and threats inside Rohingya camps in Cox’s Bazar.
The report also found firearms being smuggled into Bangladeshi territory through the Tambru border in Bandarban and recommended the setting up of a police camp near zero point in the area, about 10 kilometres from Kutupalang Rohingya camps in Ukhia.
Analysing 30 attacks that took place between August and October this year, the report stated that the ARSA was killing or injuring Rohingyas by shooting, hacking, and separating organs to create a reign of terror and cause serious concerns among the Rohingyas.
Following a military crackdown on Rohingyas on August 25, 2017, nearly 7,75,000 Rohingya women, men, and children fled Myanmar for Bangladesh. They joined thousands of other Rohingyas who had sought and found refuge in the country in previous years.
Over 4,500 Rohingyas currently live on the zero line.
