By IANS
Dhaka : Bangladesh Sunday said it would dispatch a team to probe the plight of its 100-plus workers in Malaysia who were allegedly duped and stranded.
It has lodged a strong protest with the government in Malaysia, Star Online said quoting Foreign Advisor Iftikhar Ahmed Chowdhury.
The workers, alleging that they were duped by recruiting agencies and employers, went on a hunger strike on the Bangladesh High Commission premises in Kuala Lumpur.
After chairing an emergency meeting of the Ministry of Expatriates Welfare and Overseas Employment and other ministries concerned, Chowdhury told media persons that action would also be taken against any Bangladesh agency found involved in such frauds with the job seekers.
The inter-ministerial probe team headed by the secretary of the Ministry of Expatriates Welfare, Abdul Matin, will leave for Kuala Lumpur soon to make on-the-spot investigation and submit its report to the government on the problem that surfaced after deprived expatriate Bangladeshi workers went on hunger strike.
A large number of Bangladeshi workers go to Malaysia for jobs, some of them illegally, and there have been cases of their being harassed and not being given salary.
Quoting his conversation with the Bangladesh envoy in Kuala Lumpur, Chowdhury said the workers left the premises after they were offered temporary solutions, United News of Bangladesh (UNB) news agency reported.
He said Bangladesh had sought stern action against the Malaysian company PTC Asia-Pacific for its failure to provide appropriate jobs and facilities to the Bangladeshi workers they had recruited.
Seeking cooperation of the Malaysian authorities in resolving the issue, the foreign adviser said Malaysia is an important market for Bangladeshi expatriate workforce. “So the matter is delicate,” he said.