September 17, 2025
NETROKONA – A Netrokona court has sent a Chinese national and his Bangladeshi associate to jail in a human trafficking case in Kendua upazila.
Netrokona Senior Magistrate Court sent Chinese citizen Li Wei Hao, 32, and Faridul Islam, 34, of Rajarhat upazila in Kurigram, to jail after police produced them before the court Monday evening, Court Inspector Mofiz Uddin Sheikh confirmed to The Daily Star today.
Police arrested Li and Faridul in the Komolpur area of Kendua municipality early Monday morning. At the time, they rescued three females.
According to police and the case statement, a garment worker in Dhaka — through a mutual female friend — got acquainted with Faridul who later introduced her to Li Wei. Li offered to marry her by offering her Tk 1,00,000 and take her to China. He made her sign a contract and confined her to a house in Gazipur for 15 days, with two teenage girls. They were forced to cut off contact with their families and friends.
The victim’s father, unable to reach his daughter, came to Dhaka from Netrokona, and enquired her coworkers and friends about her, which led him to Li and Faridul. When he questioned Li, he told the victim’s father that the two of them got married in court and showed some documents. The victim’s father later invited Li over to his house in Kendua upazila, Netrokona.
When Li, Faridul, the victim, and the two teenagers visited Kendua, the victim’s father invited a local to his house and asked her to verify the documents. She raised suspicions, and other neighbours called the police.
Police went to their house and arrested Li and Faridul.
Of the two teenagers with the victim, one is a 17-year-old from Melandah upazila in Jamalpur, and the other a 19-year-old from Gogda village in Kendua.
Police found that the girl from Jamalpur had been married in Dhaka to another Chinese citizen, who had also promised to take her to China, while the teenager from Gogda was lured under the same pretext.
Netrokona Superintendent of Police Mirza Saem Mahmud said investigators recovered photos of young girls, voter IDs, passports, and financial transaction records from Faridul’s mobile phone.
He added that a group had long been involved in human trafficking, mainly targeting poor and unsuspecting girls, luring them with promises of money and marriage, before attempting to traffic them to China.
On Monday, the victim’s father filed a case under the Prevention and Suppression of Human Trafficking Act, 2012 at Kendua Police Station.