The dream of a better life in Malaysia has turned into a nightmare for around 100 Bangladeshi migrant workers, each of whom had taken loans of around Tk 5 lakh to reach the country...

Crammed together, 20-25 men share a single room, with limited access to even basic necessities like food. Their pleas for work and wages went unanswered, leaving them drowning in debt with no way out...

[One worker] added that around 300 workers arrived in Malaysia to work for Petrazehra Berhad in October. But none of them were given jobs, granted work permits, or had their passports returned...

The 100 who remain at the hostel sleep on the floor, mostly eat rice and lentils, and occasionally can afford eggs. Many of them have been falling ill, with no access to proper healthcare, they said...

Petrazehra Berhad, a Johor Baru-based Malaysian company, hired the Bangladeshi workers. As per the job contract, they were supposed to get RM 1,500 (Tk 37,500) as basic salary. The brokers who mediated even promised the workers they would earn Tk 60-70 thousand a month.

The Bangladesh High Commission in Malaysia wrote a letter to the expatriates' welfare ministry in February saying that 14 recruiting agencies got approvals for sending 1,500 workers for Petrazehra Berhad, and 725 of them travelled to Malaysia.

It requested the agencies not to send the remaining 775 workers to Malaysia until the 725 got jobs, implying they were yet to be employed...