Bangladeshis in Saudi Jails
HC asks govt for report on their legal status
The High Court yesterday asked the government to submit a report on how many Bangladeshi nationals were languishing in different jails of Saudi Arabia and their legal status before it by April 8.
During the hearing of a petition, the court also ordered the secretaries to the ministries of foreign and home affairs to state in the report what steps they had taken to bring the detained Bangladeshi nationals from Saudi Arabia back to the country.
The HC bench of Justice Mohammad Bazlur Rahman and Justice Md Habibul Gani passed the order following a petition filed by the human rights organisation Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK).
The ASK in its petition prayed to the court to direct the government to take necessary steps to bring the Bangladeshis back home from Saudi jails.
Earlier, following a report in a Bangla national daily on October 13 last year, the ASK filed a writ petition saying that more than 500 Bangladeshi nationals had been languishing in Dammam jail in Saudi Arabia.
In response to the writ petition, the HC issued a rule on October 17 last year on the government as to why it should not be directed to take measures to bring them back to the country.
It also asked the government to explain why its 'inaction' to bring them back from Dammam jail should not be declared illegal.
As the government did not make any reply, the ASK in January this year submitted a supplementary to the pending writ petition to the HC, seeking necessary directives from it on the government to bring the detained citizens back to the country, Barrister Saifur Rashid, counsel for the ASK, told The Daily Star.
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