Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina today criticised the country's economic migrants as "mentally sick", accusing them of hurting Bangladesh's image as she ordered tougher punitive actions against human traffickers.
"It is not that all of them are fleeing poverty and (rather) it seems that they are chasing a golden deer... They are tainting the image of the country along with pushing their life into danger," she said in her first comments on the migrant crisis in Southeast Asia.
"The unfortunate thing is people are leaving for an uncertain destination by paying the smugglers even after being provided support... Why are they doing this?... People are getting mentally sick," Hasina was quoted by the state-run Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha news agency as saying.
She ordered tougher punitive actions against human traffickers.
Hasina asked the officials to launch a motivational campaign against the illegal campaign and ordered concerned law enforcement agencies to intensify their efforts to track down the traffickers and bring them to justice.
She said they "could have better lives in Bangladesh".
Bangladesh authorities earlier launched a crackdown on human traffickers while five of them were reportedly killed in shootouts with police mostly in southeastern Cox's Bazar district on the coastline of Bay of Bengal, the route of illegal migration.
State minister for home Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal earlier said that among the fortune seekers, only handfuls were Bangladeshis with Rohingyas were majority in number who were fleeing persecution.
He said security vigil around 250 kilometres border area in northeastern Chittagong Hill Tracts adjacent to Myanmar and open to Bay of Bengal would be tightened.
The government was also mulling to issue separate identity cards to the fishermen in the Bay of Bengal to stop human trafficking.
Myanmar's Muslim Rohingya population, who are not recognised as citizens, were forced to flee their country while Bangladeshis were said to be escaping grinding poverty.
Since the crisis erupted earlier this month, over 3,500 migrants have swum to shore or been rescued off the coasts of Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Bangladesh.
