Mohibullah murder: Three held, FM vows justice

Police have arrested three more people over their suspected involvement in the murder of Rohingya leader Mohibullah in Cox's Bazar's Ukhiya upazila on Friday midnight. 

The arrestees were identified as Ziaur Rahman, Shawkat and Abdus Salam.

Meanwhile Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen on Saturday vowed to bring the killers of the prominent Rohingya leader to justice soon.

"Mohibullah wanted to return to his homeland, Myanmar, and that's why he was killed by a vested quarter," the minister said in a statement.

"The government will take strict action against those involved in the killing. No one will be spared."

Ziaur and Abdus Salam were arrested in connection with the murder of Mohibullah were made on Friday midnight when a team of the Armed Police Battalion (APBN) raided the Ukhiya Kutupalong Rohingya camp. Later in the night, the detainees were handed over to Ukhiya police station.

Shawkat was arrested on Saturday afternoon from the same location, said officer-in-charge of Ukhiya police station Sanjur Morshed.

APBN's Superintendent of Police Naimul Haque, who is in charge of camp security, confirmed the arrest of two Rohingyas yesterday morning.

A group of unidentified gunmen killed Mohibullah at a refugee camp in Cox's Bazar's Ukhiya on 29 September.

Earlier on Friday, around 12 noon, APBN members arrested Mohammad Selim Prakash Lamba Selim Naeem and handed him over to Ukhiya police.

The APBN has arrested three Rohingya men in connection with the murder so far.

On Thursday night, Mohibullah's younger brother Habibullah filed a case with the Ukhiya police station against 15-20 unknown assailants.

Habibullah claims he knows some of the people who took part in the assassination. Addressing the press outside the morgue of Cox's Bazar Sadar Hospital on Thursday, he named Master Abdur Rahim, Lalu, and Morshed – all reported leaders and members of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (Arsa), also known as al-Yaqin in the camps – as killers of his brother.

Arsa, however, denied the allegation of their involvement with the murder in a statement, released on Saturday. The group's spokesperson Moulovi Shoeb claimed in the statement that agents of Myanmar government are responsible for the murder of Mohibullah. In a separate statement, Arsa commander in chief Abu Ammar Jununi urged the Bangladeshi government to take action against the perpetrators. According to Jununi 'transnational border-based criminals' were behind the murder.

Mohibullah, 46, who led the Arakan Rohingya Society for Peace and Human Rights, was shot dead at around 8:30pm at a Kutupalong camp office in Cox's Bazar on Wednesday.

The outspoken Rohingya leader came to limelight on 25 August 2019, when a rally organised by the Arakan Rohingya Society, to observe two years of the latest Rohingya exodus from the Rakhine State of Myanmar, drew more than 100,000 people.

He had represented the Rohingya community at the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2019.   

He also served as a spokesman representing the Muslim ethnic group in international meetings and conferences.

He, in the same year, visited the White House for a meeting on religious freedom with then-president Donald Trump and spoke about the suffering and persecution faced by Rohingyas in Myanmar.

In his remarks to the UN rights council, Mohibullah said the Rohingya had faced "systematic genocide" in Myanmar, where the government denies them citizenship.