TONGI FACTORY FIRE: None of accused arrested yet

Police could not arrest any of the eight accused named in the murder case with Tongi police station in Gazipur in connection with the September 10 factory fire at Tampaco Foils Limited at Tongi BSCIC industrial area in the district that left so far 34 dead, 10 missing and dozens injured.
The Bangladesh Army and the Fire Serve and Civil Defence continued their cleaning and search operation on Friday with the help of Gazipur City Corporation, district and police administration while bodies of six, out of 34 dead, remained unidentified, officials said.
‘The case was lodged on September 11 by a victim’s father Abdul Kader against eight people, including the factory owner Syed Mokbul Hossain and wife Shefali Akter, bringing murder charges against them,’ Tongi police station officer-in-charge Md Firoz Talukder told New Age.
Besides Mokbul and his wife, the other accused in the case are the factory’s managing director Tanvir Ahmed, general manager Shafikur Rahman, managers Monir Hossain, Samir Ahmed and Hanif and deputy assistant director Alamgir Hossain, according to sources in Tongi police.
‘We had conducted drives at several places including Dhaka, Sylhet and airport to nab the accused people. They have all gone into hiding but we have been trying to arrest them as soon as possible,’ said the Tongi police station OC.
The factory owner Mokbul Hossain is a former lawmaker of Bangladesh Nationalist party. The case was lodged a day after the home minister and the Inspector General of Police warned legal action against the factory owner.
The cases filed over the 2012 Tazreen Fashions fire and the 2014 Rana Plaza collapse accused the owners of murder due to negligence.
Tampaco, a flexible packaging and tobacco packaging factory, had been in operation since 1978 and had at least 31 clients including British American Tobacco Bangladesh Ltd, Nestle Bangladesh Ltd and government’s Essential Drugs Company Limited, according to Tampaco website.
Almost all the country’s leading food producing companies were clients of Tampaco, the website said.
Fire service deputy assistant director Akhtarhuzzaman Liton at Tongi said that they and the Bangladesh army personnel were continuing their ‘debris operation’ or cleaning and search of the victims.
Gazipur Additional District Magistrate Md Rahenul Islam said that no new body was found in the debris on Friday and the death toll remained 34 and no new name was added to the missing list. ‘The number of missing people is 10.’
The authority initially suspected a boiler blast as the reason behind the fire but the boiler inspectors, after visiting the affected site, said they found the boilers at the factory undamaged and the reason for the fire could be different.
Meanwhile, Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution Company on Thursday formed a three-member probe committee led by its Dhaka Metro North general manager Rana Akbar Haider and the committee was asked to submit its report in seven days, the state-owned company officials said on Friday.
The Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishment, Gazipur district administration, Fire Service and Civil Defence had formed separate probe committees immediately after the fire break out to investigate the matter.
Meanwhile, the World Federation of Trade Unions, in a statement, termed the Tampaco fire a ‘new crime’, condoled the families of the dead victims and expressed solidarity with injured workers.
The WFTU denounces the non-existent security measures at factories in Bangladesh that so far have cost the life of thousands of workers and alleged that once more it was confirmed that the workers unjustly lose their lives.
‘This is the capitalistic barbarity and the appetite of the bourgeoisie for the increase of their profits. For the capitalists, the workers’ life does not count. Only their profits do!!!’ the statement said.
‘We support the demands and the protests of the Bangladeshi Unions and workers for full compensation, as well as for health and security measures at the workplaces,’ the statement read.
The fire was the largest factory fire in the country after Tazreen apparel factory fire at Savar on November 24, 2012 that killed at least 112 people.
It is also the biggest industrial disaster in the country since to collapse of Rana Plaza in 2013 that killed more than 1,100 people.
Fire service officials said that the factory had three inter-linked buildings, including two old buildings unfit for running such a factory. The buildings collapsed due to the fire.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net