A total of 230 more people who wanted to go to Malaysia illegally were brought back to Teknaf yesterday after they had been stranded in a vessel near the St Martin’s Island in the Bay of Bengal for 18 days.
Teknaf police received the illegal passengers brought in two trawlers around 6:15pm. They have been kept at the Teknaf police station.
The Dhaka Tribune met some of the passengers and learned how they finished their tragic journey for Malaysia.
Mithun Sheikh from Jhenaidah said: “I started our journey along with four of my friends 18 days ago from Jhenaidah on May 23. The next day we reached Teknaf and met with a broker whom we did not know. He insisted that we board the small trawler although a broker in our area, named Alim Laskar, had told us that we were going to Malaysia legally by plane.
“That person threatened us with a gun and we were forced to board the small fishing boat. We boarded at Katabunia Ghat of Teknaf and were heading towards the main ship which anchored about 8-10km away from St Martin’s Island,” Mithun told.
After arriving on the ship at 2am on May 25, Mithun saw there were many other passengers on the ship. He said the ship had started its journey for Malaysia with more than 250 passengers.
“After spending 16 nights, the food on the ship exhausted. The brokers asked us to call our guardians to send Tk1 lakh more, otherwise we would be killed,” said another passenger named Selim from Araihazar upazila of Narayanganj.
Many of the rescued passengers said they had already paid Tk2 lakh to Tk2.5 lakh before boarding the ship.
They were given flattened rice (chira), water and rice a day.
“If we wanted more, the four captains of the ship would torture us mercilessly,” said Shah Alam from Narsingdi.
On June 11, a clash erupted between the traffickers and the passengers when the latter demanded to be returned to the St Martin’s Island as their food finished and many of them had become ill. The trawler engine had also stopped working, said Mithun.
“From then on, they started shooting us haphazardly and five of us died,” Mithun added.
According to Teknaf police station, the ship had 312 passengers – five of them died, 77 were seriously wounded and 230 ill. The ship had four crew – two from Thailand and two from Myanmar.
Teknaf police have already arrested Prakash Pal and Jahangir Alam – two traffickers in Teknaf area – and filed three cases against them for killing and trafficking people.
Tofayel Ahmed, additional superintendent of police in Cox’s Bazar, told the Dhaka Tribune: “We have already shifted 77 seriously wounded passengers to the Sadar Hospital and five dead bodies for post mortem examinations.
“We will hand over the 230 passengers to their families after interrogation today.”
He said: “We will conduct the interrogation to find out the main criminals involved with this illegal human trafficking business and then conduct drives to catch them.”
