Rab claims to have arrested three more alleged human traffickers involved in trafficking some of the 26 Bangladeshis killed in Libya on May 28.
The arrestees were primarily identified as Helal Ahmed Helu, Khabir, and Shahid. Rab members arrested them from different areas in Bhairab upazila in Kishoreganj last night, Chandan Debnath, senior assistant director of Rab-14, told the media.
The arrestees are members of a human trafficking
racket that sent some of the Bangladeshis killed in Libya a week ago, he said.
Earlier on Friday, another Rab team arrested one Kamal Uddin alias Haji Kamal (55), an alleged ring leader of a human trafficking gang, from Dhaka’s Shahjadpur area.
Kamal sent some of the victims to Libya and took ransom from at least two families when their near ones were tortured days before being killed. On May 28, thirty-eight Bangladeshis and some Africans were held hostage by the Libyan criminals, who could be human traffickers. The traffickers demanded large sums of money, although the victims had earlier paid up to $10,000 each.
There were heated negotiation between traffickers and the victims.
At one stage, the main trafficker was killed by an African. In return, other members of the trafficking gang fired shots abruptly at the Bangladeshis and Africans, leaving 26 Bangladeshi dead. According to Rab, the traffickers used to lure fortune-seekers in remote villages with promises of high-paying jobs in Libya and European countries.
He used to ask his clients to pay Tk one to three lakh first and then Tk 4 lakh after reaching Libya, and an additional two to three lakh for migrating to European counties later. The gang used to manage passports and visas for the victims.
Once they reached Libya’s Tripoli, some Bangladeshi people living there would receive them. They were later handed to local gangs who would keep them confined and torture them for money. The traffickers used to film the horrifying torture and send the videos to family members back home through different messaging apps to force them to pay ransom, Rab officials said.
