Kuwait will deport some 500 Bangladeshis who were involved in damaging vehicles and attacking the police in the gulf kingdom, an official said Wednesday, reports bdnews24.com.
As many as 300 out of the 800 Bangladeshis, arrested on charge of creating "trouble" in Kuwaiti streets, have been released for their "innocence", according to the foreign ministry.
The Kuwaiti authorities will examine the video footages and photographs of the agitating workers and find out the persons responsible for violence and attack, the ministry said in a statement.
The Kuwaiti government has also decided to increase the minimum wage of the foreign workers to 40 Kuwaiti Dinars ($151 or Tk 10,300), and it would take action against the companies who would fail to pay the minimum wage, the statement said.
According to another report, about 500 Bangladeshi workers from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia landed at Zia International Airport (ZIA) Tuesday and Wednesday, as the governments of the two countries deported them empty-handed.
The helpless workers accused the Bangladeshi missions there of not taking proper initiatives to protect themselves from torture of Kuwaiti and Saudi law-enforcers, and proect their legal rights.
"118 Bangladeshis returned by a Yemen Airlines flight Wednesday morning," immigration officer at Zia International Airport Rokonuzzaman said. "They didn't have legal passports. Therefore, the Saudis have deported them back home," he said.
According to one Saudi figure, about 1.8 million Bangladeshis live and work legally in Saudi Arabia. But newspapers here and in Saudi Arabia have long been publishing reports on illegal immigrants living and working in the desert kingdom.
The reports have prompted the Saudi police to conduct raids, arrest illegal immigrants and detain them in jail and repatriation centres for their onward despatch home.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh Embassy officials in Kuwait had met with Sheikh Jaber Dayij Al Sabah, director general of the consular department of Kuwait's foreign ministry, to resolve the crisis in Kuwait.
Sheikh Jaber at the meeting made it clear that the wrongdoers must return to their respective countries.
