Duped into lure of good days

Gias Uddin, a poverty-stricken elderly individual from Baluakandi Village under Titas Upazila in Cumilla, has been eking out a miserable existence since his childhood.

One day, a thought crossed his mind that he could send his son abroad so his dream of living a better life was fulfilled.

In the meantime, he unfortunately met a certain Bashir Dewan who assured him of sending his son to Jordan within a short time.

Convinced by the fake words of Bashir, the poor Gias scraped together Tk3.80 lakh by selling gold ornaments and taking out loans to pay him.

Bashir, son of Badsha Dewan from Sreenagar in Munshiganj, however, shattered the dreams of Bashir by providing his son with a fake visa and leaving him heavily burdened with debt.

Like this, he swindled at least 29 other people at Titas and Debidwar upazilas in Cumilla and Sakhipur in Shariatpur since October last year.

With the help of his wife, he took more than Tk10 million from them in the name of sending them to Jordan. 

On Tuesday, most of the victims gathered in front of DB office on Mintoo Road in the capital to demand justice and get their money back. Bashir has reportedly been arrested, but it could not be officially confirmed.

Earlier on 14 February, Saiful Islam, who is a victim, filed a case at Paltan Model Police Station.

He said that on behalf of most of the victims, he submitted Tk76 lakh to the bank accounts of Bashir and his wife in October last year.

The victims also received training and underwent medical tests at Royal Diagnostic and Medical Centre at Nayapaltan in the capital. Tk10,000 was taken from each of the fortune seeker for the tests.

He said, “Bashir provided us with visas and air tickets and our flights were scheduled for 14 February.

“On 13 February, we arrived in the capital and contacted him, but his mobile phone was found switched off. Later, we discovered that the visas and tickets were fake.”             

When contacted, Maksuda Akhter, an officer at Royal Diagnostic and Medical Centre, said that only four to five Jordan-bound fortune seekers were tested in their centre.

“We didn’t carry out tests on more than four to five. I suspect that Bashir faked the test reports and provided others,” she said.

About the payment, she said that they charged only Tk2,000 to Tk5,000 for each such test.