Report in a national daily on Tuesday said 81 migrant workers were sent to jail on September 1 upon their return from Vietnam without allowing them to join their families after so many ordeals abroad. Traffickers sent them to Vietnam late last year and early this year but they were not provided with work permit and put to temporary low paid jobs and many were even jobless.
The Vietnam authorities repatriated them in mid-August for illegal stay but Bangladesh police sent the returnees to jail after 14 days quarantine showing them arrested under Section 54 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), however, without being formally charged. Police said the returnees were sentenced abroad and have tarnished the country’s image.
The same report has also cited the case of another 1,293 migrants who returned from the Middle East and were sent to jail between July and September this year. Police cited similar reasons for showing them arrested without formally charged. As per law and Supreme Court directive, a person can be arrested under the Section 54 only if there is any specific allegation, but there is nothing as such in their case and yet they are now languishing in jail.
Such matters of our migrant workers should be dealt with at higher level between states. For every wrong done or alleged to have done by our migrant workers is connected with tarnishing the image of our country.
We do not really understand what image of our country they talk about? These migrant workers work abroad as slaves but to them that does not affect our image.
The money they sent from such hard slavish work is mostly spent on grand foreign trips of our VIPs. The budget is heavily dependent on these workers’ money.
We should be ashamed when gleefully blame them for tarnishing the country’s image. What image we have created for the country ourselves? Our thieves of public money have arraignments in foreign country to live in luxury.
Our police system is not independent and don’t hesitate to abuse their power if the political masters so want. There is no law for restraining the government. The country is in the control of looters of public money.
There are allegations that the young members of the government party often use police uniform. We do not want to believe this audacity. Such allegations were raised in the past also. Now the students have raised that they were beaten by wrongly using police uniform. We shall urge the high-ups not to allow tarnishing the sanctity of their uniform.
We shall insist the government should free the migrant workers on condition of investigation. Quarantine restriction is not a serious crime as such. The people in other countries also breach such restrictions.
