Staff Reporter :
The Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) on Friday arrested three alleged members of a human trafficking gang from different parts of the city.
The traffickers have been arrested after the death of Bangladeshi nationals in a boat capsize in the Mediterranean Sea while attempting to reach Europe from Libya on May 9.
The arrested men are Abdur Razzak Bhuiyan, 34, Akkas Matubbar, 39, and Anamul Haque Talukdar, 46.
Legal and Media Wing Director of RAB Commander Mufti Mahmud Khan said it in a press briefing at Karwan Bazar Centre in the capital on Firday.
Of the accused, Anamul Haque has been engaged in human trafficking for 10 to 12 years, he said.
Anamul is owner of Yahia Oversees of Zindabazar in Sylhet, and Razzak is a close accomplice of him, the RAB official said.
Besides, Akkas belongs to another syndicate, he further said.
Further details about him will not be made public as drive is on to nab the rest
members of Akkas’s syndicate is on. “We have come to know that the syndicates usually take around Tk 8 to Tk 9 lakh from the fortune seekers and tried to send them to Europe through using three routes,” he said.
The suspected traffickers either take the fortune seekers to Istanbul from Bangladesh first by road and finally to Europe via Tunisia and Libya.
Or, they take the illegal migrants to India and then send them to Sri Lanka and Istanbul for Europe via Libya.
Also, the syndicate members take Bangladeshi people to Dubai first on air way and send them to Amman and Benghazi and Europe via Libya, the RAB official said quoting the arrested.
They used the second route for the last trip that met the tragic end in the Mediterranean Sea on May 9, he said.
They collect Tk four to five lakh from the fortune seekers before departure from Bangladesh, while the rest money as per agreement after reaching Libya, RAB official Mufti said.
They also forced the fortune seekers to engage in different types of jobs in Libya to meet their living and food demands.
It may be mentioned that the survivors of the boat capsize in the Mediterranean Sea on May 9 told the Red Crescent that the tragedy unfolded after some 75 people who had left Zuwara on the northwestern Libyan coast late Thursday on a large boat were transferred to a smaller one that sank off Tunisia.
The boat sank 65 km from the coast of Sfax, south of the capital Tunis. Fishing boats rescued 16 people and brought them to shore in Zarzis, according to the Red Crescent.
Fourteen Bangladeshis, including a minor, were among the survivors, said the Red Crescent.
The UN agency says 21,645 migrants, including 17,000 via sea and the rest via land, arrived in Europe as of May 8 this year. The figures were 390,432 in 2016, 186,768 in 2017 and 144,166 in 2018.
According to European Union, there are some 100,000 undocumented Bangladeshis in Europe.
The Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) on Friday arrested three alleged members of a human trafficking gang from different parts of the city.
The traffickers have been arrested after the death of Bangladeshi nationals in a boat capsize in the Mediterranean Sea while attempting to reach Europe from Libya on May 9.
The arrested men are Abdur Razzak Bhuiyan, 34, Akkas Matubbar, 39, and Anamul Haque Talukdar, 46.
Legal and Media Wing Director of RAB Commander Mufti Mahmud Khan said it in a press briefing at Karwan Bazar Centre in the capital on Firday.
Of the accused, Anamul Haque has been engaged in human trafficking for 10 to 12 years, he said.
Anamul is owner of Yahia Oversees of Zindabazar in Sylhet, and Razzak is a close accomplice of him, the RAB official said.
Besides, Akkas belongs to another syndicate, he further said.
Further details about him will not be made public as drive is on to nab the rest
members of Akkas’s syndicate is on. “We have come to know that the syndicates usually take around Tk 8 to Tk 9 lakh from the fortune seekers and tried to send them to Europe through using three routes,” he said.
The suspected traffickers either take the fortune seekers to Istanbul from Bangladesh first by road and finally to Europe via Tunisia and Libya.
Or, they take the illegal migrants to India and then send them to Sri Lanka and Istanbul for Europe via Libya.
Also, the syndicate members take Bangladeshi people to Dubai first on air way and send them to Amman and Benghazi and Europe via Libya, the RAB official said quoting the arrested.
They used the second route for the last trip that met the tragic end in the Mediterranean Sea on May 9, he said.
They collect Tk four to five lakh from the fortune seekers before departure from Bangladesh, while the rest money as per agreement after reaching Libya, RAB official Mufti said.
They also forced the fortune seekers to engage in different types of jobs in Libya to meet their living and food demands.
It may be mentioned that the survivors of the boat capsize in the Mediterranean Sea on May 9 told the Red Crescent that the tragedy unfolded after some 75 people who had left Zuwara on the northwestern Libyan coast late Thursday on a large boat were transferred to a smaller one that sank off Tunisia.
The boat sank 65 km from the coast of Sfax, south of the capital Tunis. Fishing boats rescued 16 people and brought them to shore in Zarzis, according to the Red Crescent.
Fourteen Bangladeshis, including a minor, were among the survivors, said the Red Crescent.
The UN agency says 21,645 migrants, including 17,000 via sea and the rest via land, arrived in Europe as of May 8 this year. The figures were 390,432 in 2016, 186,768 in 2017 and 144,166 in 2018.
According to European Union, there are some 100,000 undocumented Bangladeshis in Europe.
