Case has been going on for over two years now.
A two-year-old case and lawsuit involving the former Consul General of Bangladesh in New York, Monirul Islam, has been revived as a domestic worker who used to work for Islam and alleged he was forced to work as a slave in his house and at the Consulate has now filed a lawsuit for $1 million in damages.
According to papers filed in New York federal court Monday, the former domestic worker, Mashud Rana, accused Monirul Islam and his wife, Fahima Prova, of coercing and luring him to follow them from Bangladesh to the U.S. with promises of $3,000 a month in wages and vacation time, then backing out on those promises and holding him prisoner in their house, and forcing him to work as a slave, with no wages.
This is not the first lawsuit filed by Rana.
Last year, in January, U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein in Manhattan had rejected a request by Islam and Prova to dismiss a lawsuit by Rana. In his judgment, Stein had said their employment and supervision of him were not “consular functions,” reported Reuters.
Rana sued for back pay and punitive damages in March, 2014, shortly before Islam began a new job in Morocco as Bangladesh’s ambassador to that country.
The lawsuit was filed several days after Devyani Khobragade, once India’s deputy consul general in New York, won dismissal of a federal indictment concerning her employment of another domestic worker, in a case that frayed U.S.-India relations.
Rana, a Bangladesh citizen admitted to the United States on an A-3 visa, had accused the defendants of luring him to work for them in New York by promising to pay him $3,000 a month and renew his visa.
Instead, he said he was never paid during his roughly 1-1/2 years of employment, and was forced to work 16- to 20-hour days through “physical threats, coercion, isolation (and) physical restraint,” with threats to his life if he tried to escape.
“The record on this motion shows that Rana was employed to meet defendants’ private needs,” Stein wrote. “That Rana occasionally cooked food for events at the Bangladesh Consulate and provided services at monthly community events there is not sufficient to render his employment a consular function.”
The Dhaka Tribune reported in March, 2014 that when contacted, Islam said Rana left his Manhattan apartment two or three weeks back when the consul general asked him to go with him to Morocco.
“I was posted to Morocco and I told him to come with me there but he told me that he came to America to stay here, not to go to Morocco,” Islam said.
When Islam told Rana that he would become illegal if he stayed back, Rana said that he would prefer to become illegal to stay in America.
“When I told him that I would inform the police, Rana threatened me that he would file case against me like the way the domestic aide of Devyani did,” Islam said.
The consul general informed the State Department office in New York when Rana left the apartment.
Rana, along with his wife and school-going son lived in a three-bedroom 1500 square feet apartment, when in Manhattan, the Tribune reported.
“I, my wife and son live in one bedroom and we gave him (Rana) a bedroom with attached washroom and there is a TV in his room,” he claimed.
In the lawsuit, it is written: “Mr. Rana would complete his daily tasks by approximately 11:00 pm each night. However, if defendants were attending an event outside the house, Mr. Rana was required to wait for them to return to let them in and prepare a late meal for them. On these occasions, Mr. Rana did not finish work until approximately 1 am.”
When asked about the allegation, Islam said on some occasions, they came late but the allegation that Rana had to wait for them or prepare late meal was false.
“He watched TV late at night no matter if we were inside or outside the apartment and maybe he opened the door for us but that did not mean that he waited for us. He eventually slept late,” Islam said.
When asked about allegation that Rana cooked for the family, washed clothes by hand, looked after his 11-year son and cleaned apartment daily, he said: “My wife cooks for us.”
The family owns a washing machine, so there is no point of washing clothes by hand and his apartment is small and it takes little labor to clean it with modern cleaning gadgets, Islam said.
“My son’s school starts at 8 in the morning and my office at 9. So, we start early in the morning and I come back in the evening,” he said. “In this time, what work he could do.”
When asked about the salary, he said, the non-monetary benefit is too high for him.
“If anyone wants to live in a single bedroom apartment in Manhattan area, it will costs him $3,000,” he said. “In addition to that we gave him full salary and provided all the necessary things.”
1 Comment
the traitor-in-chief (obama) is out of control. the courts are the hope.