Chaos over flights to KL: What steps were taken against those responsible?

The High Court yesterday wanted to know what steps have been taken against people responsible for the mismanagement that led to Bangladeshi jobseekers failing to reach Malaysia before the deadline of May 31 this year.

The court asked Deputy Attorney General Tushar Kanti Roy and Assistant Attorney General Selim Azad to enquire about the steps taken by the authorities concerned and place the information before it in a week.

The bench of Justice Mustafa Zaman Islam and Justice SM Masud Hossain Dolon passed the order during a hearing of a writ petition.

Seeking necessary directives, Supreme Court lawyers Md Tanvir Ahmed and Biplab Kumar Poddar filed the petition as a public interest litigation based on a report published on The Daily Star on June 2 headlined "Jobs in Malaysia: Mismanagement left over 3k workers with no ticket to KL".

According to the report, Mismanagement by government authorities and local recruiting agents led to over 3,000 workers failing to reach Malaysia before the deadline of May 31.

Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (Baira) initially estimated that 3,000 to 4,000 Bangladeshi workers could not reach the Southeast Asian country within the deadline, set by Kuala Lumpur in early March.

On May 31, several hundred workers waited for hours at the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport to catch flights. Many of them went there without tickets after receiving assurances from local recruiters that they would be given tickets on time, the report added.