Kuala Lumpur - A group of 70 Bangladesh workers walked 70 kilometers from their factory in the southern Malaysian state of Johor to flee their employer whom they alleged beat and deprived them of their wages, reports said Thursday.

The men walked from the factory to the nearest bus station to go to the capital Kuala Lumpur, where they hoped to get help from the Bangladeshi High Commission.

"When we asked our bosses for our salaries, they beat and kicked us. They treated us like animals and made us work without caring for our welfare," 27-year old Nazrul Islam was quoted as saying by the New Straits Times daily.

Workers claimed that the factory owners owed them two to three months' wages.

District police said the workers had yet to lodge a report against the employers, adding that police would investigate the abuse allegations.

The Malaysian government imposed an indefinite ban last year on hiring Bangladeshi workers due to an increasing rate of complaints of abuse and cheating by agents and employers.

There are about 300,000 Bangladeshi workers in Malaysia and they make up the second-largest number of foreign workers in the country, after Indonesians. (dpa)