Back from traffickers' den

All they wanted to achieve was a better future. To bring solvency and happiness to their families, they became desperate to migrate to Malaysia even by any means.

But they had to return home empty-handed after enduring inhuman suffering in the sea and at jungle camps where they were held and tortured by human traffickers.

A number of Bangladeshis, among the 41 trafficking victims who returned to Dhaka on Wednesday after serving different terms of jail sentence in Thai detention centres, shared their ordeals with The Daily Star at the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport.

One of them was Sajibuzzaman Sajib, 22, a resident of Kalaroa upazila in Satkhira. He had to serve eight months' imprisonment in a Thai detention centre.

A school dropout, Sajib was deceived by a local human trafficker who promised him and seven others of the upazila jobs and handsome salaries in Malaysia in October last year.

Abdul Latif, the alleged human trafficker, promised to send them to Malaysia by air.

“I couldn't continue my education because of poverty. So I had to leave school and search for work. I tried to start a small business in my locality but failed,” Sajib said.

When the local trafficker offered him a lucrative job in Malaysia in exchange for Tk 2.2 lakh, he decided to go for it. Sajib expressed his wish to go to Malaysia to his parents and they did not disapprove.

Besides, his parents were very happy with the idea that their son would end their sufferings by sending money from Malaysia.

“As per contract with Latif, we paid him TK 50,000 in advance. He told us that we need to pay the rest on reaching Malaysia,” Sajib said.

On October 13 last year, he and the seven others left Satkhira and reached Dhaka along with Latif. They were taken to a hotel for one night.

The next morning, the victims were told that they could not be sent through Dhaka airport for security reasons and that they needed to go to Chittagong airport. Four of them declined and returned to Satkhira.

“Now I understand how lucky they [those who returned home] are,” Sajib said.

Instead of taking them to the Chittagong airport, they were taken to Cox's Bazar. After three days, they were compelled to take the perilous sea voyage with some others from Teknaf.

“There were several hundred people on the boat. They kept us in the ship for 21 days. We were given rice once a day and a small amount of water,” Sajib recalled. At least two jobseekers died of torture by the traffickers in the sea, he added.

In early November, they were taken to a Thai jungle. The traffickers kept them there for four days, and after that the Thai police rescued them.

Although he could not contact his father in the meantime, his father, Abdul Khalek, got a phone call from an unknown person who demanded Tk 5 lakh for Sajib's release.

Khalek said, “He [the unknown caller] informed me that my son was staying with them at Teknaf, and we have to pay TK 5 lakh to bring him back home.”

Although he sought help from different government and private agencies for his son's release, no one could help him.

His hope to see his son again was gradually fading until the time when the police informed him of Sajib's rescue in Thailand in March.

Khalek filed a case against the local human trafficker with a Satkhira court in April. He also demanded that the government ensure exemplary punishment of the perpetrators and arrange compensations for his son and others.

The stories of Shahidul, 28, Jahangir, 20 and Rasel Rana, 16, -- three others who left home with Sajib -- are almost the same.