Human trafficking from the Cox’s Bazar coast continues unabated. Previously people from this region, including Rohingyas of Myanmar, would go to Malaysia. Now people from 19 districts of the country, including Rangpur, Dinajpur, Rajshahi, Jessore, Kurigram, Mymensingh and Khulna, are going too.
Some of the people reach Thailand where they pay a large sum of money and manage to reach their destination. Many others drown when the trawlers capsize. Others go missing. A large number are also caught and languish in Myanmar and Thai jails. Most of the traffickers simply hand these hapless people over to pirates on the high seas. The pirates beat them up and rob them of all their belongings. The booming business of human trafficking thus continues.
No agency of the government has managed to give an accurate account of how many people are going to Malaysia every month through this route. However, Abu Morshed Chowdhury, president of the Cox’s Bazar Civil Society, active in the movement against human trafficking, says that over the past three years about 10 to 15 thousand people have left for Malaysia by these means. At least 500 of them have died in trawler capsizes and over 1500 are missing. They collected this data through carrying out investigations along the coast.
Deputy commissioner Ruhul Amin says other than the 30 thousand refugees in the two camps at Ukhia and Teknaf, there are over another 400 thousand people from Myanmar illegally living in the jungles and kills of the area. In search of work or falling pray to traffickers, these Rohingya set off by sea for Malaysia and fall into danger. This activity continues despite efforts to prevent such trafficking.
Incidents: On 3 September this year police caught 19 persons at eleven in the night from Palakata in Chokoria. These people from Sirajganj, Comilla and Jessore were going to Malaysia.
The 27-year-old Rafiqul Islam and 40-year-old Tara Miah of Sirajganj, who were caught in the police drive, said that they paid 10 thousand taka each to a dealer Jasim Uddin who took them via Dhaka to Cox’s Bazar. At night he handed them over to pirates who stripped them of all their money and valuables and set them free.
Eighteen-year-old Ripon Hossain of Jessore and 30-year-old Ershad of Comilla said that the pirates beat them up but let the trafficker Jasim run away. They think that the traffickers and the pirates know each other from beforehand. About going to Malaysia by this illegal route, Ripon and Ershad said that going to Malaysia for only 10 thousand taka was like a dream. They had no idea that it was a fraud business until it was too late.
Officer-in-Charge (OC) Mahfuzur Rahman of Cox’s Bazar sadar model police station tells Prothom Alo that on 3 September a trafficker of Magura, Sagar Biswas, had brought nine passengers from Magura to Cox’s Bazar to send them to Malaysia. On 4 September while he was selling them to another trafficker Mohammed Mustafa at a local hotel, the police nabbed them.
Jamal Uddin and Zubair of Habiganj, both in their twenties, told the local media that while bringing them from Habiganj the trafficker Sagar Biswas has said that he would send them to Malaysia by ship. They wouldn’t have to pay anything at the time, and would only have to pay a small sum after they got their jobs in Malaysia. But then he handed them over to another trafficker in Cox’s Bazar for 15 thousand taka each.
In police detention, Sagar Biswas tells Prothom Alo that there are hundreds of such dealers who bring people from various districts to Cox’s Bazar free of cost. They then receive from 5000 to 15 thousand taka when they hand them over to traffickers there. Human trafficking has become a lucrative business. These passengers are taken to Thailand and other places where they are sold for 200 thousand to 250 thousand per head.
On 4 August a trawler carrying over a hundred passengers was destroyed along the Naziratek coast. Thirty-five-year-old Alam Sheikh of Narsingdi died in the accident. Survivor of the accident, Mohammed Shaheen of Narsingdi, says, “The trawler was destroyed in the turbulent waves during stormy weather on the way to Malaysia.” He managed to survive by clinging on to a barrel and floating to the shore.
Police super Shyamal Kumar Nath of Cox’s Bazar says, “The police has been kept on alert about human trafficking. The police have also been holding rallies and gathering to raise public awareness against trafficking in Ukhia, Teknaf and the sadar upazila.
OC of Teknaf police station Mukhter Hossain says that over the past eight months the police, BGB and other law enforcing agencies caught 533 passengers from the Teknaf coast alone. And 122 cases have been filed against over 400 traffickers in Teknaf police station. The police are endeavouring to end human trafficking completely, he says.
Source: Prothom Alo
