Growing Radicalization & Criminalization of Rohingyas in Bangladesh – Impact on India NISSMAT

What this session covered

This session took the form of an interview rather than a panel: the host put a sequence of questions to a single guest, introduced as a research scholar at a Delhi-based conflict research institute who writes on political affairs in the region. The discussion examined conditions inside the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh, the criminal and militant networks said to be operating within them, the measures the speaker attributed to the Bangladeshi authorities, and the consequences the speaker saw for Indian security; a short closing exchange dealt separately with the Chittagong Hill Tracts. On the camps, the speaker described eleven militant or criminal groups active across camps in two districts, among them two better-known Rohingya armed organisations, with each group holding its own operational zone. Violence between them was attributed to competition over illegal trades, including arms trafficking, narcotics and human trafficking, to the defence of spheres of influence, and to a continuing requirement for recruits drawn from the camp population. The camp population was given as 1.3 million on an estimate the speaker attributed to the current Bangladeshi government, with a further influx of around 60,000 described as having entered through at least 25 to 30 crossing points following an escalation of fighting by an armed group in Myanmar's Rakhine State. The speaker also set out a longer history for the population's presence, tracing it to labour movements under colonial-era cultivation policy and to the withdrawal of citizenship in Myanmar in 1982, and noted that the largest influx had followed 2017.

Asked why the camps had not been brought under closer control, the speaker characterised them as effectively ungoverned spaces in which arrests of cadres did take place but in a random rather than systematic fashion. On the presence of weapons, the speaker was explicit that detailed authenticated reporting was lacking and rested the point instead on two public statements by senior Bangladeshi officials of the former and current administrations. Asked directly what the government was doing, the speaker credited a set of specific measures: intensified vigilance by the border guard along the Myanmar frontier, frequent arrests in the two districts concerned, activation of the coast guard to turn back arrivals coming by sea, and a repatriation roadmap being pursued in dialogue with the Myanmar authorities. The speaker's assessment was that the authorities were doing what they could without achieving complete success, rather than that they were inactive. Alongside this, the speaker stated that Bangladesh's military intelligence directorate had met Rohingya representatives in order to provide weapons and intelligence training for use against the Buddhist insurgent group operating in Rakhine, and judged that arming an already radicalised population in this way would rebound on Bangladesh in future.

Turning to India, the speaker argued that the camps function as a recruitment pool, citing efforts by a Bangladeshi outfit with a declared anti-India position to raise and train cadres for infiltration and sleeper-cell activity, and pointed to arrests of members of Rohingya groups in Indian states far from the eastern border as evidence of geographical spread. The speaker further asserted that Pakistani intelligence had brought four Rohingya groups into an alliance in the last quarter of 2024, and referred to earlier reporting of support from a Pakistan-based organisation operating through a charitable front during flood relief work. Asked about the risk of communal repercussions inside India, the speaker took the view that the moment of greatest danger had passed and pointed instead to systematic, seasonally timed infiltration as the more persistent problem. On madrasas, the speaker noted an increase in their number along the India-Nepal border area and in districts of Assam, while stating that no concrete report had yet directly linked such institutions to radical organisations. On the Chittagong Hill Tracts, the speaker described the contention there as a land dispute between Bengali-speaking Muslim settlers and the indigenous Buddhist population, and was explicit that it was a separate matter from the Rohingya question. The host, for his part, raised concerns about strain on Indian border forces, intelligence tracking and the political climate; these were framed as his own reactions rather than as findings.

Key points raised

• The session was a single-guest interview, not a panel discussion, covering conditions in the Rohingya camps in Bangladesh and their implications for India.
• The speaker described eleven militant or criminal groups operating across camps in two districts, among them two better-known Rohingya armed organisations, with violence attributed to competition over illegal trades, contested operational zones and the recruitment of cadres.
• Population figures cited were 1.3 million in the camps, attributed to a current Bangladeshi government estimate, with a further influx of around 60,000 described as entering through at least 25 to 30 crossing points.
• On weapons inside the camps, the speaker acknowledged that detailed authenticated reporting was absent and relied on two public statements by senior Bangladeshi officials rather than on documentary sources.
• Asked what the authorities were doing, the speaker credited intensified border-guard vigilance, frequent arrests in the two districts, coast guard interception of arrivals by sea and a repatriation roadmap pursued with Myanmar, while separately stating that Bangladesh's military intelligence directorate had offered weapons and intelligence training to Rohingya representatives, which the speaker expected to rebound on Bangladesh.
• The speaker argued that the camps serve as a recruitment pool for groups seeking to infiltrate India, asserted involvement by Pakistani intelligence in aligning four Rohingya groups in the last quarter of 2024, considered the risk of communal repercussion inside India to have receded in favour of systematic seasonal infiltration, and noted that no concrete report yet links madrasas directly to radical organisations.