Staff Reporter :
Some 30 Bangladeshi workers who have lost their jobs at Saad Group Company based in Dammam of Saudi Arabia were scheduled to return home on Thursday night.
A flight of Saudi Airlines was scheduled to arrive at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport Thursday night, said officials concerned.
According to Bangladesh embassy in Riyadh, a total of 170 Bangladeshi workers were employed in Saad group company and of them 63 workers have decided to come back home with final exits.
Some 25 workers have already returned home, said Mizanur Rahman, first secretary of Bangladesh embassy in Riyadh.
The 30 workers would return home by SV 804 flight taking off from Dammam International Airport on Thursday, he said.
Meanwhile, 25 fortune-seeking Bangladeshi workers who got stranded in an Afghanistan factory for over 10 months were flown back home on Thursday morning.
An aircraft of Bangladesh Biman carrying them workers landed at Hazrat Shahjalal International airport at about 10 am yesterday.
“Today is one of the very happiest days of my life as I have returned to my country after long captive elsewhere. We all 25 people passed many days without food and had been held hostage at a building for about a year,” wiling Taju Miah of Narayanganj district told journalists.Nazmul Haque of Kishorganj and Faruk Hossain of Mymensingh districts echoing the same, also expressed concern over their future, as they had to give huge amount of money to the middlemen to go to Afghanistan.
Shakil Ahmed, an official of International Organisation for Migration’s (IOM) Dhaka office said they went to Herat province in Afghanistan illegally and joined a factory there.
“But, the factory was shut down after two months of their joining. Since then they had been stranded there,” he added.
According to them and IOM officials, fortune-seeking workers met Ramproshad, an Indian citizen who had offered them good jobs in Afghanistan.
They each had given taka 1.5 lakh to Ramproshad to get the job. They had left home for Afghanistan on October 10 last year under the arrangement of Ramproshad from West Bengal. He had pledged lucrative salaries to the job seekers.
“He (Ramproshad) assured us of giving good jobs in Afghanistan. But we couldn’t understand that his assurance was nothing rather a cheating. Later we all 25 were taken to Gazra area of Herat province. And we had been given job at a steel mill there. But the duration of ours visas was one month,” Nazmul Haque said.
He added the middlemen in Afghanistan assured them of extension of their visas.
The IOM official Shakil Ahmed said the ministry of foreign affairs took steps to bring back the workers home.
According to foreign ministry sources, the Afghan authority provided food and shelter to the stranded Bangladeshi workers following foreign ministry’s request. Besides, the Afghan authority also exempted their visa fee for their overstay in Afghanistan, the sources added.
