6 return from UAE after govt pays blood money

16 May 2010, 18:00 PM

Staff Correspondent

Six Bangladeshi workers sentenced to death in a murder case in the United Arab Emirates have returned home recently after Bangladesh government paid blood money to secure their release. The government paid 2 lakh dirhams (Tk 38 lakh) to the family of a Pakistani worker who they killed in 2007. "Three workers returned home last week and three others two days ago," Labour Councillor Nasreen Jahan of Bangladesh embassy in Dubai told The Daily Star over phone yesterday. Three of them are identified as Farhad, Nazimuddin and Kajal, she said. Names of three others could not be known. When contacted, Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Khandakar Mosharraf Hossain said he was not aware of the fact that the workers have already come back. "It is unfortunate that the workers returned home but did not bother to inform the minister," he said. Nasreen Jahan said the six Bangladeshis and the Pakistani stayed in the same camp in Dubai. They killed the Pakistani worker in 2007 following an altercation. A Dubai court sentenced the six to death. Later, the appeals court upheld the capital punishment against them in 2009, she said. Blood money is paid to the victim's family in exchange for waiving their right to seek death penalty. Such practice is widely practised in the UAE, home to around 8 lakh Bangladeshi workers. The family of the Pakistani worker first demanded 6 lakh dirhams in blood money. Following negotiations, the amount was fixed at 2 lakh dirhams. Thirty thousand dirhams were spent in lawyer's fees, Nasreen said.