Laxmipur 2 MP Mohammad Shahid Islam Papul’s alleged involvement in human trafficking has come up in a US report published on Thursday.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and President Trump’s Senior Adviser Ivanka Trump, unveiled the “Trafficking in Persons Report.”
The report takes Papul's human trafficking incident seriously.
According to the report, government officials, including various members of parliament in Bangladesh, are closely associated with organizations offering jobs abroad, which is in conflict with the creation of an immigration-friendly environment.
Hence recruitment agencies defraud migrant workers and hinder their safety.
Referring to Papul's human trafficking case, the report says Papul took 20,000 Bangladeshis to Kuwait by bribing Kuwaiti officials to give them jobs.
Most of the workers who were told they would be provided with certain jobs were deprived after they went to Kuwait. They were given other jobs instead, where they either were paid less or were not paid at all. The media had made various reports on this issue since 2015, the report mentioned.
Regarding human trafficking in Malaysia, the report said Malaysian employment agencies and 10 recruiting agencies of Bangladesh bribed officials and politicians in both countries and kept the whole process under their control, collecting up to Tk400,000 from each person. However, the fee set by the government for going to Malaysia was only Tk37,000.
Again, migrant workers suffered for the most part.
After two warning messages, the Bangladesh government submitted their investigation report to the High Court in November 2019, and a hearing is still pending on the matter.
On Wednesday, the Attorney General of Kuwait decided to imprison Papul for 21 days in their central prison. According to a report in the Arab Times, the public prosecutor decided to continue the imprisonment of the remaining accused and to release the owner of a company on bail of 2,000 dinars.
On June 7, Kuwaiti police arrested Papul on charges of human trafficking, visa trafficking, and money laundering. After a long interrogation, it came to light that Papul amassed his wealth by deceiving people and was assisted by influential government officials in Kuwait given bribes, gifts, and other opportunities.
So far, the investigation has revealed that Papul earned around Tk60 crore every year, excluding various bribes, gifts, and other expenses.
Of the four other persons accused in the case, two are in-charge of the Kuwaiti Public Authority for Manpower, one is a colonel in the Ministry of Interior, and the other is a businesswoman.