2 factory owners, 2 engineers remanded

The photo shows rubble of the collapsed building at Savar. Star file photo

The photo shows rubble of the collapsed building at Savar.

Two owners of a garment factory housed in Rana Plan and two Savar municipality engineers have been remanded over the deadly building collapse.

The factory owners have been remanded for 12 days while the engineers for eight days in two cases filed over the tragedy that led to the death of at least 340 garment workers.

Senior Judicial Magistrate in Dhaka Tajul Islam passed the remand orders on Saturday afternoon when the four were presented before him with a 14-day remand for each of them in the cases.

New Wave Bottoms Chairman Bazlus Samad and its managing director Mahmudur Rahman Tapash were arrested hours after the prime minister had ordered capture of the owners of the building and the factories that used to be there.

On Saturday, two engineers of Savar municipality were arrested on charge of playing down the danger from the cracks that developed at the nine-storey building on Tuesday.

Savar police arrested the two engineers — Imtemam Hossain and Alam Miah — from their respective residences in the municipality area around 4:30am, said Habibur Rahman, superintendent of police in Dhaka told The Daily Star.

The engineers were arrested for dismissing the risks even after industrial police visited the building, Rana Plaza, and asked the authorities not to open the building, the SP said.

Police have been conducting raids and interrogating the relatives to arrest Sohel Rana, the owner of Rana Plaza, he said.

On Tuesday morning, some cracks developed on some pillars and a few floors of the building following a jolt, causing panic among the people working there.

Workers of at least two garment factories at Rana Plaza were forced to join their workplaces following a false assurance on the building’s safety from the local engineers.

On Wednesday, the nine-storey building, housing five garment factories, a shopping complex and a branch of Brac Bank, collapsed trapping a huge number of people inside it.

So far, 340 bodies have been recovered from the rubble.

The arrests follow widespread criticism that the government was reluctant to take action against Sohel Rana, owner of the building and a leader of Savar municipality unit Jubo League.

Later that day, Savar police filed a case against Rana, his father and four factory owners, but failed to capture any of them.

Rana went into hiding shortly after he was rescued from the rubble of the nine-storey building.

Using political influence, Rana had grabbed 56 decimals of land at Savar Bazar bus stand area and built the high-rise there flouting related laws.

Source: The Daily Star