Deaths won’t stop as justice a mirage
FROM PAGE 1
The deadly fire at the BM Container Depot in Chattogram’s Sitakunda on June 4 last year shook the whole nation with the scale of the disaster and its sheer human cost. Yet, it has now become a distant memory.
The fire killed 48, including 10 firefighters, and the depot was up and running within five months.
The Detective Branch of police in Chattogram is still investigating the incident and it is yet to submit a report. Nobody is in jail in connection with the incident.
While investigators were dragging their foot with the probe, there was another fire at the very depot in December, indicating lessons were not learnt.
On July 8, 2021, a fire at a factory of Hashem Foods and Beverages Ltd killed 51 people, of whom at least 20 were children.
The children were engaged in hazardous labour at the factory, and the gates were locked, preventing them from escaping the fire.
Hashem Foods and Beverages Ltd is yet to suffer any consequences. All its units in Rupganj of Narayanganj are running at full throttle, except the one that got burnt down.
Owner Abul Hashem and his four sons were released on bail within a month of their arrests.
Nearly two years on, the Criminal Investigation Department is yet to finish the probe.
Interestingly, a month prior to the incident, the DIFE had filed a case with the labour court against Hashem Foods citing safety rules violations. Even this trial has not been completed, said investigators.
On Sept 10, 2016, a boiler exploded at a foil-producing factory in Tongi’s BSCIC industrial area killing at least 34 people.
Tampaco Foils Ltd in 2019 started a “new state of the art plant with most advanced technology, machinery, safety and compliance features ensuring modernaisation and expansion”, according to its website.
“Every single work-related accident with injury to a person is one accident too many!” read the company’s website, which has no mention of the 34 people who died within its walls.
Officials at Tampaco said nobody at the factory has been convicted and that the police have not been able to prove anything.
Officer-in-Charge Mohiuddin of Tongi (east) Police Station does not even know what happened to this case. “Following the incident, the Tongi police station was split into east and west stations and the case got lost during the process,” said Mohiuddin.
Bangladesh Legal Aid Services Trust, Ain o Salish Kendra, and others had filed a writ petition with the High Court seeking its directives for adequate compensation for the victims. The writ is still at the hearing stage, said lawyers.
There is another similar cry for compensation that went unanswered.
In 2020, the workers of Tazreen factory spent up to a month on the sidewalk in front of the National Press Club demanding that they be compensated according to section-121 of the International Labour Organisation.
The section states that the victims must be compensated according to the amount they would have earned in their remaining working lives.
Shahbagh police eventually charged truncheon on them and beat up the handicapped workers to chase them away.
Meanwhile, the owner of the factory was able to climb the political ladder. He joined ruling party politics in 2018 and in May last year, he was elected president of Matshajibi League’s Dhaka city north unit.
At the court, the trial goes on at snail’s pace with the recording of a handful of witnesses’ testimonies in seven years.
On Dec 24, 2021, a fire broke out in the engine room of MV Abhijan-10 on the Sugandha river in Jhalakathi. At least 41 died.
Vessel owner Hamzalal Sheikh and two others were arrested but they are now out on bail.
Even in the case of the Rana Plaza collapse, the worst disaster in Bangladesh’s history that caused 1,140 deaths, only one out of the 41 people accused is in jail.
The charges were framed in 2016 but none of the 40 could be arrested in six long years.