Ethnic party to scrutinize Kaman population in Burma

(Yangon, 29 November 2013) : An ethnic  national party of Burma (Myanmar)  announced that it has decided to collect the population list of Kaman people in the country, which is a small ethnic group of Arakan practicing Islam.
Kaman National Development Party (KNDP), in a statement issued on November 23 last, asserted that it wanted to know the exact population of Kaman people in Burma.
The Myanmar immigration ministry is also understood to provide green signals to the KNDP for collecting the population list belonging to the names of Kaman ethnic people.
The total population of Kaman in Burma is expected to be around 50,000 in Burma. But over one lakh (1,00,000) people in Burma are understood to have Burmese national identity cards with the identity of Kaman ethnic national.
“We come to know that the population of Kaman people is increasing. Hence we want to have the population list for verifying the numbers,” said U Tin Naing Win, general secretary of KNDP.
He also added that during the military regime for nearly 60 years in Burma, they had no option to carry out such mission. As the Southeast Asian our country is now adopting democracy, the KNDP has taken the initiative. It would also help the authority to identify other nationals of Burma, if at all they are using Kaman ethnic names, disclosed U Tin Naing Win.
“We suspect that many Bengali people in Arakan have received the Burmese ID cards with Kaman ethnic names” said the KNDP leader.
It became possible because of some corrupt and dishonest immigration officers posted in Arakan. The immigration officers had allegedly issued those ID cards taking bribe from the beneficiaries. So the number of Kaman people in Burma has swollen, claimed one politician from Arakan state.