Police deny border clash with Rohingya

Myanmar’s district police denied clashes took place between the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO) and riot police near the Myanmar-Bangladesh border.

Maungdaw District Police Lt-Colonel Shwe Than said yesterday that a report that two-day-long clashes occurred between border pillars 54 and 55 was “wrong”.

The Dhaka Tribune newspaper had reported on August 14 that the shooting started on Wednesday night at around 9pm in the area between pillars 54 and 55 at Panchori Goritola area under Dochori union and went on at regular intervals until Thursday afternoon. The newspaper added that a few militant outfits including the RSO were trying to reorganise in the border area ever since the withdrawal of Myanmar’s Nasaka comprising members of the military, police, customs and the border security force on July 12.

Following the abolishment of the Nasaka, the Myanmar government decided to entrust riot police with the task of securing the country’s border. But slow deployment of the riot police along the border has given Rohingya militants an opportunity to reorganise themselves, the newspaper said.

On July 31, Bangladesh border guards arrested two RSO commanders, Shariful Islam and Ziaul Haque, in the remote Gorainnakata area of Dochori as they were distributing relief among the Rohingya, the newspaper added.

The RSO has recently increased its activities by targeting poor Rohingyas in the remote hilly 

areas on the frontier and tactfully providing them with food, shelter and training, the newspaper claimed. The outfit is said to have taken advantage of the relatively slack security on the border ahead of a national election in Bangladesh and in the absence of the Nasaka.

According to the newspaper, many residents of Panchori and Dochori, preferring anonymity, said they had seen some RSO members with heavy weapons flocking near pillars 54 and 55 on Wednesday afternoon.

That evening, they went to the barbed wire fence on the border and tried to enter into Myanmar. That is when the fighting ensued.

When questioned about the report by the Dhaka Tribune, Shwe Than replied that it was “just wrong news”. 

There had been no clashes between the RSO and Myanmar riot police, he insisted, adding that they had a meeting with the tactical commander who was on field duty at the border the day before, so the news report is false.