Arakan News Agency
In a swift security operation that took only about 90 minutes, the police in Bangladesh rescued two businessmen who had been kidnapped in the Ukhia area. Following a report received on the national emergency line 999 on Tuesday evening, two suspects involved in the crime were arrested.
According to the police, the businessmen, Saif Islam, aged 28, and Noor Hussain, aged 42, were found held captive in a remote hill near the Inani area, approximately three kilometers from the abduction site. They were rescued unharmed.
Initial investigations indicated that the kidnappers demanded a ransom before fleeing upon the police’s arrival. The suspects were later apprehended based on descriptions provided by the victims.
The incident occurred in the “Chapathkali Badhalarmukh” area of “Jalia Palung” in Ukhia around 6:30 PM, when a resident reported that their neighbors had been kidnapped at gunpoint and held in an isolated mountainous area.
The police confirmed that investigations are ongoing to determine whether others were involved in the kidnapping, amidst increasing concerns about security in the mountainous regions near the Bangladesh-Myanmar border.
Abductions have become frequent within the Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar recently, including the kidnapping of a young man named Mohammad Jaber at the Shalbagan camp in Teknaf, where kidnappers demanded a ransom after sending distressing footage showing him being tortured.
Furthermore, a Rohingya girl was abducted in the camps where her family was extorted for a large ransom. In June, the body of a Rohingya child was found murdered a day after his abduction when his family couldn’t pay the ransom.
Similarly, a Rohingya youth was tortured after being kidnapped by unknown individuals, and the abduction of the Rohingya child “Mohammad Arakan,” whose abductors buried his body in sand after sending photos to his family demanding a ransom for his release, while another Rohingya youth named “Abu Yusuf” recounted details of his kidnapping and torture by unknown individuals in the Bangladesh camps before being released after his family paid the ransom.
More than a million Rohingya refugees reside in the Cox’s Bazar area, having fled violence and persecution in Myanmar since the “genocide” campaign conducted by the Myanmar army against them in 2017. The United Nations describes the Cox’s Bazar camp as the largest refugee camp in the world.
