Employees of two foreign airlines are involved in human trafficking from Bangladesh: police

The Criminal Investigation Department of police say they have information that the employees of two airlines are involved in trafficking people from Bangladesh.

The CID declined to name the two foreign airlines at a press conference organised in Dhaka on Tuesday to brief the media about a red corner notice issued for six absconding accused in human-trafficking cases through the Interpol.

The employees of the airlines sent passengers with single tickets, which was the “wrong thing to do”, said CID chief Mahbubur Rahman, an additional inspector general of police.

No-one can travel with single tickets to attend seminar, get medical treatment or tour, he said.

The airlines have also noticed the matter, Mahbubur said.

Asked whether the immigration officials had any responsibilities for letting the passengers go abroad with single tickets, he said the immigration officials had been shown “incorrect” return tickets.

“The airlines people knew it and they were involved,” said the CID chief.

He also said that the CID have interrogated some officials of the two airlines at its office.

A group of human traffickers shot dead 26 Bangladeshi and four African migrants at Mizdah, a desert town in Libya, on May 28.

A number of cases were filed in Dhaka and other parts of the country and dozens were arrested following the killings in Libya.

The Interpol has recently issued the red corner notice on the six absconding Bangladeshi suspects at the request of the CID, who said the accused were hiding abroad.

All the six are named in cases of human trafficking leading to the killings of the Bangladeshi migrant workers in Libya.

The suspects are Eqbal Zafor, Tanzirul, Shapan, Shahadat Hossain, Nazrul Islam Molla and Minto Mia.

Mahbubur said the police have information that Tanzirul was in Italy, but the law enforcers could not trace the others.

They have been accused of luring people with promises of jobs, kidnapping and extracting a ransom and killing the victims.

Libya is home to a large number of migrants, including some who came to work in the major oil-exporting nation before its descent into civil war, and others hoping to use it as a way station on the journey to Europe.