1784‐85 Burmese king Bodapawpaya’s conquest of Arakan led to the mass migration of Mogh and the
Rohingya to Chittagong. Moghs settles in Bandarbon, and Cox's Bazar. Rohingyas settled in southern
Chittagong. Pierre Bessaignet says "By the end of the eighteeth century, as a result of Burmese
invasions, two‐thirds of the population of Arakan .have fled to Chittagong..." Habibullah says, “Muslims
escaped by the sea and amalgamated with the locals and the Moghs went to settle in the forest.”
1797 Both Buddhists and Muslims were equally tortured and mass migration of Arakanese to Chittagong
took place. Habibullah estimates "About 1000,000 Mogh and 30,000 Rohingyas entered Chittagong.
Rohingyas settled in southern Chittagong in localities were called "Roai Para." During this time the term
"Moghur Mulluk" to refer Arakan as a lawless society came into use.
Harvey says “The reasoning on which Bodawpaya acted was not pecular to him. It was the regular policy
of most Burmese kings...It was not unlike the policy of European countries in former times, but they
outgrew it. Hervey says Arakan had never been populas, and now it became a desert; the towns were
deserted and overgrown with jungle, and there was nothing to be seen but "utter desolation...moras,
pestilence and death." Harvey says "And here most of the fugitives were not even political refugees, but
simply harmless people fleeing from death. And the years went by there came to be 50,000 of them‐it
was sort of racial migration" Harvey seems to refer to the widespread Rohingya migration to Chittagong.
Burmese practice of oppression was such that “To break the spirit of the people, they would drive men,
women,and children into bamboo elclosures and burn them alive in hundreds. The depopulation was
such that there are valleys where even today the people have scarcely recovered their oiginal numbers
and men still speak with a shudder of Manar Upadrab "the oppression of the Burmese" Harvey says the
above is a tragic story. But it is the story of the kings, not of the people. The Burmese had never used
coins and hence he had no model of his own. He copied therefore the Moslem design. Habibullah says,
“To introduce the same justice system, coinage he by the use of force took three thousand seven
hundred Muslims from Arakan to Burma. They are called in Burmese Thum Htaung Khunya (three
tousand seven hundred)