Desk Report : Finally, the long wait of his family came to an end as Ramiz Ali returned home yesterday, after enduring untold sufferings in Iran for 36 years. 

For 18 years, his family had no clue whether he was alive or dead. Then two years ago, a local informed the family that Ramiz, now aged about 65, was alive and working in Iran. Since then, his wife and four children had been waiting for his return.

Eight other Bangladeshi migrants also landed at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport around 10:00am along with him. Rights Jessore, an NGO, with the help of the Bangladesh mission in Tehran, arranged their repatriation.

Ramiz, a father of two sons and two daughters, went to Iran illegally in 1978 to make a fortune. Nobody cheated him, but he could not get a decent job there as he did not have any legal documents.

And when he came home after all these, he was empty-handed.

"I led an extremely miserable life and did many kinds of work. But I could not save any money," Ramiz told The Daily Star at the airport.

He first went to India and then to Afghanistan. He entered Pakistan and from there to Iran with the help of a Pakistani lorry driver. He did not carry any passport or any other legal document.

He kept contact with his family in Golapganj of Sylhet till 1994, and then suddenly stopped calling home.

"For more than 15 years, I worked in a factory as a water supplier in Tehran, but my employer did not give my wages regularly. He often threatened to hand me over to the police," he said.

He wanted to come home after around 10 years of his entry to Iran but he did not, knowing his parents were dead.

"My father had a dream to go to London. He sold out my grandfather's property to materialise his dream. But he could not go to London," Najim Uddin, the youngest son of Ramiz, told The Daily Star over the phone from Sylhet.

Najim, 40, said as they were in the dark about his father's condition, his elder brother Sharif Uddin went to Iran in 1989 to see it for himself.

"He [Sharif] met my father and spent four and a half years with him. After that, we did not hear from either of them."

Ramiz said Sharif went to Dubai in 1994 for a better luck. "I don't know where he is now."

None in the family knows it either.

Like Ramiz, Kamar Uddin, 55, did not see his family for the past 23 years. He, too, went to Iran illegally, via India and Pakistan in 1990. He wanted to come back earlier, but did not dare making any attempt fearing arrest.

"My wife and my son repeatedly asked me to come home. But I did not have my passport to return," he said.

He said he used to fish in the Arabian Sea for a fish trader. Kamar, however, sent money to his family through some other Bangladeshis living in Iran.

Over the past two months, Iran police rescued at least 80 Bangladeshis, including the nine who returned yesterday.

The seven other returnees are Halim, Mohsin, Sohrab, Shahabuddin, Tamijuddin, Zillur Rahman and Rhidoy.

Some of them were trafficked from the UAE and Oman to Iran, with promises of lucrative jobs in European countries.

Twelve of the 80 returned home in the first phase on April 17. Another 21 will arrive on April 30, said Binoy Krishna Mallick, executive director of Rights Jessore. The Daily Star

Local Time : 0246 Hours, 26 April 2024

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