Police Headquarters has formed a four-member special probe committee to collect information – from the root level to the top – on the human trafficking gangs active in the Bay of Bengal.
The probe body, headed by Chittagong Metropolitan Police (CMP) Additional Commissioner (Crime and Operation) Banaz Kumar Majumder, was formed a few weeks ago following a directive by the government, aiming to stop the increasing trend of human trafficking and illegal voyages by the sea route, sources at the CMP said.
Talking to the Dhaka Tribune, Banaz said they were given a 15-day deadline at first to collect the necessary information on human traffickers, trafficking routes and transports, and other relevant information.
“But we sought an extension as we need more time to gather all the information,” he said, adding that the government would take necessary preventive measures based on the committee’s report.
At least 3,000 people have been detained on their way to Malaysia, Thailand and others countries through the Bay of Bengal this year, according to sources at different law enforcement agencies.
In the latest incident, Bangladesh Navy rescued 625 people from the Bay of Bengal – 135 nautical miles southwest of the St Martin’s Island – on Monday. The navy found the detainees while they were travelling to Malaysia illegally on an unnamed trawler with a Myanmar flag hoisted. The detained comprise both the traffickers and the victims.
Arrested traffickers spill the beans
The arrested traffickers, both Myanmar and Bangladeshi nationals, confessed during interrogation that some trawler owners on both sides of the border were involved in human trafficking. A number of Bangladeshi and Myanmar expatriates are involved with the trafficking as well.
The trawlers wait in deep sea for 12-15 days, while the local brokers fetch people in small groups from different areas in the countries and bring them to the trawlers.
One such broker is Anwar, son of the chairman of Merulla in Myanmar’s Mongdu area, who is quite influential. He collects people who want to go abroad and supplies them to the trafficking trawlers, assisted by his agent Selim Majhi, the traffickers said during interrogation, the traffickers said.
On the Bangladeshi side, Rahimullah and Khulla Miah from Teknaf, Cox’s Bazar run one of the Bangladeshi rackets in the region, said Gul Mohammad, one of the traffickers and a Myanmar national illegally residing in Patiya, Chittagong.
Another trafficker, Mohammad Hashem said a group of fishermen aid the traffickers with food and water supply and other assistance, as well as information on the movement of law enforcement agencies.
“We (the fishermen) also try to convince other fishermen to join the business, or take the offer of going to Malaysia at a cheap rate themselves,” the Patiya native, fisherman-turned-trafficker told the Dhaka Tribune on Wednesday.
The traffickers mainly target the poor, illiterate and unemployed people from the northern districts and rob them of huge amounts, alluring them to give job in abroad.
According to the law enforcement agencies, a good number of human traffickers use the coastal areas of Chittagong’s Bashkhali, Sitakunda, Anwara, Sandwip, Boalkhali, and Cox’s Bazar’s Maheshkhali, Kutubdia, Teknaf, and St Martin’s Island as embarkation points.
Professor Dr Zakir Hossain of the law faculty at Chittagong University, an expert on the subject of human trafficking, said as the sea is vast and it is not always possible to keep watch on all of it, it is a comparatively easy route for the traffickers.
