Aspirant migrants, who missed their flights to Malaysia, staged demonstrations in the SAARC Circle in the Karwan Bazar area in Dhaka on Wednesday demanding the jobs they were promised in the South East Asian country.
Later, they withdrew their demonstrations after expatriate welfare ministry adviser Asif Nazrul assured them of starting the migration process from March.
The demonstrators, part of a group of 18,000 people who missed the May 31 deadline last year set by Malaysian authorities, began their protest at about 9:00am, blocking the turning points between Karwan Bazar and the Panthapath intersection.
After two hours of demonstration, the police requested them to stand beside the road clearing the traffic.
At one stage, the workers moved to the expatriates鈥� welfare ministry to place their demand.
The workers also announced that they would continue their protest until the problem was solved.
Main Uddin Babu, a leader of the protesters, said that the adviser had assured them of resuming the process by March when they meet the adviser.
Nobody from the ministry confirmed about it.
Earlier, the protesters said that the demonstration would be continued until the interim government announced a specific date for sending the stranded workers to Malaysia.
They, however, demanded the government send them to the country by February 20.
Around 50,000 Bangladeshi aspirants failed to migrate to Malaysia after completing almost all the processes by the May 31, 2024 deadline set by the Malaysian authorities. Of them 16,970 aspirant migrants failed to fly to Malaysia at the last moment due to unavailability of air tickets.
On October 4, Malaysian prime minister Anwar Ibrahim after a bilateral meeting in Dhaka announced that they had agreed to consider issuing 18,000 work visas for those Bangladeshis who got stuck and could not fly due to some recent measures by the Malaysia government.
Malaysia is a top destination for Bangladeshi migrants as nearby 10 per cent of total workers migrate to Malaysia which is over 12 lakh since 2004.
