Seven Rohingya Muslims nabbed at BIAL

Seven Rohingya muslims trying to go to Malaysia with fake documents were nabbed at Bangalore International Airport here late on Thursday night.

The seven arrested persons are Salma Begum, Mohammed Tahir, Omkar Farook, Mohammed Halek, Rehana Begum, Mohammed Mustaf and Rajat Mandal. According to the police, the accused were refugees from Myanmar and had been residing in Hyderabad for some time. Halek, one of the accused, had created fake visas and passports for all of them. They were trying to travel to Kuala Lampur, Malaysia but were nabbed at the Bengaluru International Airport. A case against the accused has been lodged at the Airport Police Station.

An official of the Airport Police Station said it was the first time that Rohingya muslims had been nabbed at BIAL. The official said the accused could not speak either English or Hindi. The immigration officials at the airport detected that their documents were fake and reported the same to the police.


About 1 lakh Rohingya refugees are estimated to be in Malaysia. In October 2018, Malaysia Defence Minister Mohamad Sabu had raised concerns over the number of Rohingyas entering the country, saying that Malaysia gets a spillover effect of the issue.