There is no end to the problem facing the Bangladeshi expatriates in foreign lands. They come one after another. It is really upsetting to know when Bangladeshis become victims and the perpetrators of crime at the same time. Recently, one such incident took place where an Iraq-based transnational human trafficking syndicate trapped Bangladeshi expatriates to blackmail their family for a ransom.
The syndicate first captured Bangladeshis using sweet words of invitation to their fellow countrymen to their place and as they came to their place, they were quickly turned into captives in the hands of the syndicate. Then the syndicate members tortured the captives and recorded the torture in a video which was sent to their families with the demand of money.
While being in unknown foreign lands, people usually seek the company of their fellow countrymen and the syndicate just used this weakness of ‘being fellow countryman’ to trap them. According to a report of a national daily yesterday, seven Bangladeshi victims were released from the syndicate’s captivity in Iraq in two days. It also said, among them, three could manage to communicate with the Bangladesh embassy in Iraq and went back to their work. But the rest remain still untraced.
Therefore, the first duty of the Bangladesh Mission in Iraq is, with the help of the Iraqi government and its law enforcing agencies, to find the missing Bangladeshis. Rather ironically, the two Bangladeshi partners of the transnational kidnapping syndicate were operating from Bangladesh also and it was, in fact, through their arrest, the captivity of seven Bangladeshis came to light.
The incident of kidnapping people and then demanding ransom for release is nothing new, but what is new is the exploitation of feeling for the fellow countrymen on a foreign land. Therefore, the expatriate Bangladeshi people now must be extra cautious about the person they talk to even when they are Bangladeshis as well as their movement while they are in a foreign land.
It first happened in Iraq. The next time the place could be Libya or Malaysia. Hence, it is now the responsibility of the Bangladesh Mission to the countries where there are Bangladeshi workers to make them aware of this lurking danger. It must not be forgotten that even at present when higher inflation has gripped the world and dollar reserves in Bangladesh Bank are falling, it is the remittance of the expatriate workers that is working as the lifeline of Bangladesh economy. It is obligatory for the Bangladesh government to ensure their safety in foreign lands.
