Faruque Ahmed
Following the discovery of 139 mass graves of Bangladeshi migrants with scores of Rohingya refugees in Malaysian jungles along Thai borders, Kuala Lumpur announced the arrest of at least 10 police officers last week as part of a crack down for their alleged nexus in the dreaded human trafficking across the sea.
Earlier, the tragedy started to come to the light following the discovery of innumerable mass graves in Thai jungles closer to Malaysian border prompting a global outcry as to what was happening in the Malaccan jungles across the strait.
The scale of the tragedy involving thousands of people has already established it as a billion dollar trade in slavery in modern time. We are also familiar with stories of Portuguese pirates who used to land on Asiatic shores from the sea and bundle people on ships to sell them in Europe and other western destinations to work in plantation as slaves.
But this time we are witnessing identical tales originating from Bangladesh and Myanmar coasts in the Bay of Bengal. People in Bangladesh were in a rude shock and surprise when it was discovered how such a large scale trafficking could take root and spread across the coast heading towards those countries and beyond.
The investigative story by BBC’s Jonathen Head suggested that Thai politicians, lawmakers, police, army personnel, local administration and the people in rural villages around the jungles were involved in running the slave trade. A plunge in their earning from rubber plantation was slowly replacing the slave trade in Thai communities as a new source of income and it was protected by a section of the administration.
The story narrated the efforts of a district head in a region closer to Malaysian border where the slave trade was at its peak and migrants including women and children were held in jungles camps, tortured, raped and killed.
It said when a district head who repeatedly tried to secure help from the central government and local law enforcement agencies and his pleas were not only turned down, he was subjected to rigorous questioning as to why he was raising the matter in public forum. Some police officials blamed army that control the area closer to Malaysian border for the trade but the army in turn blamed police for sheltering the illegal trafficking.
Now after the arrest of Malaysian police and disclosure that local influential persons were also involved has proved they were part of a cross border regional trafficking syndicate. They run extensive network from Bangladesh and Myanmar coast to Thailand and Malaysia.
What is yet to be seen is how the network operated in Bangladesh. There is no compelling reason for the Bangladeshi nationals like the Rohingyas, who are persecuted in their own homes, to leave the country.
However, media reports revealed that a large number of young people were missing in remote villages throughout the country. The agents of human traffickers used low cost hotels in capital Dhaka to collect these young people from the districts and then transported to Cox’s Bazar and Tekhnaf to ship them onward in small vessels and sea going boats.
A report few days back said agent of a human trafficker was misleading a girl from Habiganj to Dhaka promising to find her a lucrative job. However, timely intervention of the girl’s parents was able to rescue her from Habigonj bus stand.
Speculations run high that highly organized traffickers syndicates are running this slave trade from Bangladesh and there are clear indications that political leaders, law makers, police and local administration is involved in the game.
People in Bangladesh would like to see that human traffickers here should also be punished like that of the Thai and Malaysian government.
Source: Weekly Holiday
