DHAKA, Bangladesh

Elite Bangladeshi forces arrested a ringleader of a Myanmar separatist group on Friday from the southeastern Cox’s Bazar refugee camp.

Hafez Nur Mohammad, camp resident and commander of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), was captured by the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) in an overnight operation, the unit's Legal and Media Wing Director Khandaker Al Moin announced.

The RAB, which conducted the operation and apprehended the man, stated that the force continued its efforts in remote forests to detain other members of the group.

The ARSA has allegedly been responsible for leading criminal activities, kidnappings, and killings, according to police. Numerous insurgent groups from Myanmar's northern Rakhine State are active in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar, including those seeking control over refugee camps.

A young Rohingya and refugee rights activist Mohammed Rezuwan Khan told Anadolu Saturday over the phone that his brother-in-law was abducted by four armed men on Thursday from the Balukali Refugee Camp in Cox's Bazar.

The kidnappers released their captive brother-in-law in exchange for 70,000 Bangladeshi takas (approximately $700) on Friday.

"The refugee camps have become a hellfire. I could not name the people who kidnapped my brother-in-law because I fear they'll then kill me in my residence. There is a secure place for the persecuted Muslim community," he shared in a frustrated choked voice.

In a report earlier this month, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said criminal gangs were terrorizing Rohingya in Bangladesh. Citing official data it said that at least 48 Rohingya have been killed this year so far, while 40 were killed in 2022, with at least 11 armed groups operating in Cox's Bazar camps.

Scores of refugees have been abducted for ransom and threatened or tortured, it added.

Meanwhile, UN Bangladesh mission chief Gwyn Lewis met Bangladesh's interior minister on July 18 and expressed concern over the growing amount of violence in refugee camps.

In response, Asaduzzaman Khan said the government was thinking of deploying the army in Cox's Bazar to tackle the killings and control the situation.

Nearly 1.2 million Rohingya live in Bangladesh, the majority of whom fled a brutal military crackdown in Rakhine in August 2017. Most of them are housed in overcrowded camps in Cox's Bazar district, but around 30,000 have been relocated to the island of Bhasan Char since late 2020.