The government is going to replace officials at the Bangladesh High Commission in Kuala Lumpur to ease labour problems in Malaysia.

The high commissioner and the labour counsellor at the Bangladesh mission have been called back, Labour and Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain told reporters at his office yesterday.

"We are sending a full set of officials to the mission in Kuala Lumpur to deal with the problems," he said.

Malaysia recently cancelled 55,000 work visas to Bangladeshis. Thousands of unemployed workers are also returning home from different countries.

Around 60 more workers returned home from Malaysia yesterday as they were not employed and paid, said an official at Zia International Airport.

Meanwhile, labour wings of both Awami League and BNP yesterday requested Malaysia Trade Union Congress to take immediate steps to protect the rights and interest of Bangladeshi workers in that country.

Replying to a query, Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain said the allegations against high commission officials concerned in Kuala Lumpur will be investigated and actions would be taken accordingly.

He said the government is also considering compensation to unemployed workers who have returned home.

Foreign Minister Dr Dipu Moni and Mosharraf are likely to visit Malaysia on March 29-30 to thrash out the current labour problems there.

"If need be, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will also go to Malaysia...We are hopeful that Malaysia will review its decision of cancelling visas," he said.

Mosharraf does not see anything unusual in the return of 300-400 workers a day as there are 62 lakh Bangladeshi workers in various countries of the world. "Nothing has happened that can cause panic," he said.

In a joint letter to Malaysia Trade Union Congress President G Rajasekaran, Bangladesh Jatiyatabadi Sramik Dal and Jatiya Sramik League said, "We would request you and your esteemed organisation, which is well-known for protecting human and trade union rights of working people, to look into the issue."

Sramik League General Secretary Roy Ramesh Chandra and Sramik Dal President Nazrul Islam Khan signed the letter.

In the letter, the two leaders expressed concerns over the facts that hundreds of Bangladeshi workers were either arrested in Malaysia or sent back to Bangladesh while a huge number of workers were thrown out of employment without notice and are being forced to return home empty-handed.

They said hundreds of Bangladeshi workers who arrived in Kuala Lumpur with valid legal documents were not allowed to go to their workplaces and were detained by the immigration authority. Some of them managed to return to Dhaka and described their immense sufferings under custody.