DHAKA, 13 December 2004 — Three thousand Bangladeshi workers staying in Malaysia without valid documents have returned home since the beginning of November in the wake of Kuala Lumpur’s threat of a crackdown on illegal foreign workers.

The Bangladesh Embassy in Malaysia issued 1,800 travel passes during this period for those Bangladeshi workers who lost passports or stayed in the country after expiry of their visa, officials said in Dhaka yesterday.

The embassy issued the travel passes on the directive of the Bangladesh government so that the Bangladeshi workers did not face any difficulties in returning home.

Approximately the ‘same number’ of Bangladeshis came back home from Malaysia without seeking travel passes from the embassy, sources in the Ministry of Expatriate Welfare and Overseas Employment said.

Kuala Lumpur had earlier declared a general amnesty to over one million illegal foreign workers and asked them to leave the country by Nov. 15.

The Malaysian authorities said they would not seek any explanations from, or impose any penalties upon, illegal workers if they left the country within the deadline. Later, the deadline was extended till Dec. 15.

Dhaka wants early return of the Bangladeshi workers staying in Malaysia illegally so that fresh recruitment can start under an agreement with Kuala Lumpur signed in October last year, sources in the ministry said.

Malaysia is yet to start fresh recruitment of manpower from Bangladesh or any other countries with which it signed the agreement. It will start the process after deporting all illegal workers, they pointed out.

“We hope the Malaysian labor market will be open to Bangladeshi workers from the beginning of next year,” one source said.

The expatriate welfare ministry, however, said some autonomous states in Malaysia continued to recruit workers from Bangladesh.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh’s main opposition parties have pledged to repeat Saturday’s cross-nation “human chain” protest at the end of this month in a bid to oust the four-party Islamist-allied government, a report said yesterday.

The second “no confidence human chain” — which would stretch from northeastern Sunamganj district to southwestern Sundarban — was planned for Dec. 30, private news agency United News of Bangladesh said.