What actions taken against traffickers, HC asks

The High Court today wanted to know the actions taken against the travel agencies and human traffickers responsible for the death of 37 Bangladeshis in the Mediterranean Sea.

The court asked the Deputy Attorney General ABM Abdullah-Al-Mahmud Bashar to provide the information to this court within the next seven days.

The bench of Justice FRM Nazmul Ahsan and Justice KM Kamrul Kader passed the order during hearing a writ petition filed in this regard.

The court also kept the petition stand-over (pending for hearing) for a week. It fixed next Monday for further hearing on the petition.

Supreme Court lawyer Advocate Emdadul Haque filed the writ petition on June 16 seeking a directive on the government to take action against the travel agencies and human traffickers responsible for the death of 37 Bangladeshis in the Mediterranean Sea.

The Bangladeshi nationals, most of whom were from Sylhet and Noakhali, reportedly died after their boat capsized in the sea on the way to Italy from Libya on May 9.

The advocate in the writ petition also prayed to the court to order the travel agencies, which illegally sent the Bangladeshi nationals through the sea to Italy, to compensate Tk 1 crore each to the families of the victims.

He also urged the HC to direct the government to form a high-powered committee in order to probe the incidents of illegal human trafficking and to identify the travel agencies and fraud human traffickers responsible for incidents.

The lawyer in the petition also requested the High Court to ask the government to incorporating a provision of death sentence in the Manab Pachar Protirodh O Daman Ain (Human Trafficking Prevention Act and Suppression Act) 2012 for the persons responsible for the incidents of human trafficking.