Claims CID
The Criminal Investigation Department yesterday said it found involvement of some officials of two foreign airlines serving Dhaka in human trafficking from Bangladesh.
Seven officials of the two airlines were called to the CID headquarters and interrogated who primarily admitted that they are involved in the crime, CID chief Mahbubur Rahman said at a press conference at its headquarters in the capital.
However, the CID did not disclose the names of the airlines and the officials.
He said all those who have been trafficked from the country have been taken on tourist visas or on visa for attending different conferences.
If anyone goes to any country on these visas, they should have a return ticket. But no one took the return ticket which is a fault on part of the airlines, and their officers are involved, the CID boss added.
About taking people on tourist visas or on visas for attending different conferences without return tickets, the CID chief said they interrogated the airlines staffers, but they failed to give any “satisfactory answer” in this regard.
“We talked to members of the senior management of the airlines who said some of their colleagues admitted to them that they had links [with human traffickers].”
During departure, the trafficked people showed return tickets which were fake. Immigration officials cannot see whether those were issued, but airlines can see whether the return tickets were issued or not, he added.
A CID official, wishing anonymity, said an employee of one of the airlines had already been arrested and sent to jail.
On November 27, Interpol issued red notices against six Bangladeshi fugitives involved in human trafficking in various countries in the Middle East and Europe after Bangladesh police on October 18 sought its help in arresting them.
The move came following the killing of 26 Bangladeshi migrant workers in a Libyan desert town Mezda on May 26 this year.
The traffickers are Minto Mia, 41, Shapan, 28, Tanzirul, 35, and Jafor Ekbal, 38, from Kishoreganj, Molla Nazrul Islam, 43, from Madaripur, and Shahadat Hossain, 28, from Dhaka. Tanzirul is currently in Italy.
The CID chief said 38 Bangladeshi nationals had been trafficked to Libya on different times since May 2019. They were taken to Benghazi, Libya, though they were promised to be sent to Italy and Spain.
Twenty-six of them were shot dead for ransom, and in connection with the incident, 26 cases were filed across the country against 299 people on charge of human trafficking. The CID filed three of the cases and the rest were lodged by the victims’ families.
The CID is investigating 25 of the cases and has so far arrested 171 people. In one of the cases filed in Habiganj, a charge sheet was submitted.
Of the arrested accused, 42 have already given confessional statements before courts, he said.
