Police arrest two Rohingya women with fake passports at Dhaka airport

Police have arrested two Rohingya women just as they were about to board an international flight using forged Bangladeshi passports.

They were detained from the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport early on Saturday morning, the police said.

The miscreants, aged 58 years and 63 years, told the authorities they were intending to travel to Saudi Arabia for Umrah on a Kuwait Airlines flight, said SI Zahid Hasan of City Special Branch's Airport Zone.

"Their conduct before boarding the plane raised suspicion. They gave erratic answers when questioned by the authorities, leading to their arrests."

According to SI Zahid, the two women were being accompanied by an agent who managed to slip past the authorities.

The passports carried by the women were forged at some point during the middle of April. The counterfeit passports provided a Chattogram address in one and a Narayanganj address in the other.

Around 1 million Rohingyas are currently taking shelter in refugee camp's in Cox's Bazar after escaping persecution in their homeland Myanmar.

Despite several measures being taken to prevent them from spreading out, there have been a few reported instances in which they were apprehended outside the camps.

The arrest of the two women also sheds light on the shortcomings of the efforts to stop them from getting Bangladeshi passports.