Dhaka MetropolitanMagistrate Begum Yasmin Ara on Wednesday placed the alleged kingpin of aninternational women trafficking racket, Ashraful Mondol alias 'Boss Rafi', andthree others on a five-day remand.
The three other membersof the racket are Sahida Begum alias 'Madam' Sahida, 46, Md Ismail Sardar, 38,and Abdur Rahman alias Arman Sheikh, 26.
All the four personswere involved in an international trafficking ring and were arrested in a casefiled on charges of trafficking women and forcing them into sex racket inIndia.
The traffickers used tofilm the women in compromising positions after drugging them. They later usedthe videos to blackmail the women and force them into sex crimes.
The investigatingofficer, Mohammad Mohiuddin Farooq, produced the four accused before the courtseeking a 10-day remand for them to investigate the matter.
The international humantrafficking ring spreading from Bangladesh to India, Pakistan and the MiddleEast, especially Dubai, reportedly has more than 50 members, who trick womeninto travelling to India and the Middle east by promising them jobs at markets,department stores and salons, sources said.
The traffickers usedboth legal and illegal ways to take the victims to India after gathering themin the border districts of Jashore, Satkhira and Jhenaidah.
The Rapid ActionBattalion (RAB) of Bangladesh Police had arrested Rafi and three others fromJhenaidah, Jashore and the Benapole border area between Monday night andTuesday morning. Later, a case was filed at the Hatirjheel police station.
Commander Khandaker AlMoyeen, director of the media wing of RAB, told IANS on Wednesday that TikTokHridoy, another kingpin of the racket who was arrested in India recently, hadhelped Rafi traffic around 50 women since the duo had met two years back.
Hailing from Nadpara inJhenaidah, Rafi got involved in women trafficking 10 years ago. Rafi hasconfessed to the police that in these 10 years, he had smuggled more than 500women to foreign traffickers.
The racket came to lightfollowing the arrest of Hridoy and five of his associates in Bengaluru after avideo footage of brutal torture and sexual assault of a Bangladeshi girl inIndia went viral.
The woman was torturedfor helping two others escape, Rafi has confessed.
Rafi had trafficked thewoman to Bengaluru in October last year where she was taken to a safe house.The video was recorded there, he confessed.
Rafi had earlier workedas a driver and a garment trader in Bengaluru for eight years during which timehe came into contact with the human traffickers. He later formed his own gang,Moyeen told IANS.