Bangladesh: A mobile court convicted a human trafficker and fined Tk 3 lakh ($3,540) for trafficking workers to Cambodia and Vietnam.
The accused is Abdur Rahman, linked with travel and recruiting agencies Bright Star Corporation Limited and Port City International Limited, located in the city’s Dainik Bangla area.
The mobile court was conducted on Thursday afternoon by Kazi Abed Hossain, magistrate and deputy secretary of the expatriates welfare and overseas employment ministry.
EWOE ministry’s Joint secretary Md Jahangir Alam also took part in the drive with RAB and Ansar Battalion.
Jahangir Alam told New Age that Port City International Limited, on the 4th floor of Sylhet Bhavan near the Dainik Banla crossing, had been locked by the court.
During the drive, many illegal documents were seized along with 80 passports for illegally sending workers to Vietnam and Cambodia, he said.
Abdul Aziz, owner of the Port City International Limited, was also fined Tk 1 lakh ($1,180) because Abdur Rahman was his recruiting agency partner before December 2019.
Now he has bought the share of Abdur Rahman. After selling the share, Abdur Rahman continued his previous business using Port City International document.
In Cambodia, he opened a company named EC Builders with Khoo, a Singaporean national.
Abdur Rahman, along with some Bangladeshis and Vietnamese, was also involved in human trafficking, according to the officials.
For combating trafficking, the EWOE ministry held an inter-ministerial meeting on March 4, 2020.
According to an investigation report of the government, over 100 trafficked Bangladeshi workers are in deep trouble in Cambodia.
Bangladeshi workers were trafficked to Cambodia on sticker visas or stamp visas showing them tourists or visitors by Bangladeshi recruiting agencies and their brokers based in Dhaka, Singapore and Bangkok, said the EWOE investigators.
Some of the trafficking victims returned to Bangladesh after suffering ordeals and the others are in Cambodia in miserable conditions, said EWOE ministry officials. NEW AGE BD
