Editorial
The workers' visas were genuine?
Victims must now be compensated
The 82 Bangladeshi workers who were forced to return to Dhaka from Dubai airport on the ground that they had fake visas on them can now actually go back to Dubai. The immigration authorities in Dubai, as we understand, have now acknowledged that the visas were genuine and that there was a 'communication gap' that compelled the workers to go back to Dhaka. That is all very well, but even so the explanation given out by the Dubai authorities about a communication gap being there does not hold much water. The workers, once they landed in Dubai, were told in no uncertain terms that they had to go back to Dhaka as their visas were not in order. No explanations were offered and even attempts by the Biman authorities, who were responsible for taking the workers to Dubai, to explain matters were rudely brushed aside.
There is little question that the entire ordeal of a journey from Dhaka to Dubai and then summarily being sent back has been traumatic for the 82 Bangladeshis. Now that they have been told they can go back to Dubai, they cannot quite be certain who will bear the expenses of the new journey. Moreover, there is the question of the financial loss Bangladesh Biman has suffered through the reckless move of Dubai immigration. Biman was forced to off-load some of its scheduled passengers in order to accommodate the returning workers. The question that must now be answered is simple: who is at fault regarding the plight of the workers? Obviously, the finger of blame is pointed, with good reason, at the Dubai immigration authorities. Then comes the other question: what level of personnel at Dubai airport determined, and on what criteria, that the Bangladeshi workers had arrived on fake visas? The fact that now a communication gap is being talked about simply will not do and it should be for the Bangladesh authorities, especially the foreign ministry and the overseas employment and expatriates' welfare ministry to take up the issue with the authorities in Dubai. The Bangladesh mission should take up the matter in earnest and get to the bottom of a situation that has left everyone confounded.
Meanwhile, the evident trauma that the 82 Bangladeshis have gone through calls for financial compensation to be made to them. The Bangladesh government, in a firm move that clearly ought not to be seen as any form of genuflection, must approach the UAE authorities and present the case for these people who, in all probability, spent a fortune despite their poverty to make that bungled trip to Dubai. In other words, those who are responsible for causing them such misery, indeed for such a lapse that is now described as a communication gap, must be made to make amends.
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