BMET wants agent's licence cancellation

The Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET) yesterday recommended cancelling the licence of recruiting agency Raj Overseas for its involvement in trafficking five Bangladeshis, who are now languishing in a Tanzanian jail.
Following a hearing at the BMET office in the capital, Selim Reza, additional director of BMET, asked the officials concerned to write to the Ministry of Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment suggesting cancellation of the agency's recruiting licence.
Using the security money Raj overseas had deposited to the BMET, the five Bangladeshi jobseekers should be brought back home, Selim Reza told the complainant.
According to a complaint made to the BMET, Shahab Uddin, a broker of Raj Overseas, charged Tk 5.5 lakh from each of the jobseekers to send them to South Africa in January last year.
The victims are Jahinur, Kalachan and Biltu Mia, all hailing from Manikganj, Rasel of Gazipur and Shafiq Hawlader of Munshiganj.
Complainant Ataur Rahman, Jahinur's father, said these jobseekers, however, were initially taken to Uganda and then to Kenya, where they were kept hostage. When the victims' relatives went to Shahab Uddin for help, the broker charged additional Tk 4 lakh each to send them [Job seekers] to South Africa.
But the five were instead sent to Tanzania without passports where they were arrested and put in jail.
In another case, guardians of seven Bangladeshis jailed in Tanzania submitted Tk 88,500 each in May for their return, but they are yet to come home.
According Bangladesh high commission in Kenya, that oversees consular affairs in Tanzania, there are now a total of 19 Bangladeshis in two jails in Tanzania.