Recruiting agency owner arrested over murder of migrant worker in KSA

The Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) on Thursday arrested two people including the owner of a recruiting agency based in Dhaka, over the death of Umme Kulsum, who was sent to Saudi Arabia as a domestic help.

Mokbul Hossain, owner MH Trade International, along with his associate Parvej Ahmed, were arrested from the recruiting agency’s Fakirapool office in Dhaka during a raid on Thursday afternoon, confirmed Polash Kumar Basu, an executive magistrate of the elite force.

“We have received two complaints, based on which the raid was conducted. One of the complaints was from Kulsum’s family,” he said. 

Talking to reporters after the drive, the magistrate said that a case against the two will be filed soon for human trafficking. 

According to RAB, some 17 months ago, a local broker named Razzak Mia sent Kulsum – the daughter of Shahidul Islam of Brahmanbaria’s Nurpur village – to Saudi Arabia as a house help through Mokbul’s recruiting agency in exchange of Tk30,000.  

Mokbul has also been accused of falsifying Kulsum's age to 30 in her travel documents, Polash added.

Immediately after she arrived in the desert country as domestic help, Kulsum’s employer started to torture her, RAB sources said. Kulsum’s family, after getting informed about the matter, sought the help of the recruiting agency to bring her back home.

But the agency did not cooperate and told Kulsum’s family that their daughter had been severely beaten by her employer.

She then was left on the streets of Saudi Arabia with one of her eyes damaged, her waist, knees, and legs were broken due to the intense torture. At one-point local police rescued and admitted the 14-year-old to a local hospital where she succumbed to her injuries on August 9.

Her body was brought back home on September 11.