Reshma rescue controversy draws flak
Major General Hasan Shahid Suhrawardy, General Officer Commanding of Savar Cantonment, yesterday urged all not to play foul with the army.
“If you play foul with the army, there is a possibility that you might get hurt,” he said at a press conference at the secretariat.
The briefing was arranged amid news reports that had termed a hoax the miraculous rescue of garment worker Reshma Begum from the rubble of Rana Plaza 17 days into the collapse.
In an article published in the British tabloid newspaper Daily Mirror on June 30, Simon Wright wrote that two fellow workers of the sewing machine operator claimed Reshma had escaped with them on the day of the disaster and all three took treatment together at Enam Medical College and Hospital.
The GOC described the reports as false, blatant lying, motivated and a conspiracy to tarnish the image of the army and the country.
“I don’t want to comment on a person [Simon] who was arrested in a criminal case. But I want him and those who were with him to be tried,” he told journalists, adding that Wright had come to Bangladesh as a tourist.
Flanked by some senior army officers and officials of the disaster management and information ministries, he said conspiracies were being hatched against the Bangladesh Army when the force was being widely applauded in the country and everywhere in the world for its tradition and professional skills.
“… Many quarters from many places are coming up with statements to make the army controversial. Conspiracy is being hatched not only centring on Reshma. Conspiracies began right after the army got charge of the Rana Plaza rescue operation,” said Suhrawardy.
At that time, he said, some write-ups in some blogs urged the government to get rid of the army to avoid trouble. “Those who are now writing stories about Reshma are the troublemakers.”
He added: “The intension is to destroy the chain of command in the army.”
He, however, did not say who the conspirators were.
At a separate press conference arranged by the ISPR at the Jatiya Press Club, directors Zahidur Rahman and Rawshan Akhter Chowdhury of Enam Medical College and Hospital dismissed reports that Reshma had been admitted to the hospital.
Of the 1,700 persons treated, 700 got admitted and their names are registered. But Reshma’s name is not there, said Zahidur.
Enamul Haque
He, however, said 1,000 people got primary treatment and it was not possible for them to say whether Reshma was among them.
Also present at the press conference were garment workers Enamul and Lipi, who, according to some Bangladeshi newspapers, were the sources of the Mirror report.
But the two dismissed the suggestion that they had talked to any foreign journalists.
They also said they neither came out with Reshma nor taken treatment together at the hospital.
“Someone called me last Friday saying that a foreign journalist wanted to meet me. He tried to lure me by offering a donation. I was not home at the time and when I came close to my home, my mother asked me not to meet the foreign journalist. So I did not meet him,” said Enamul.
Monsur Ahmed and Hazera Begum, whose house Reshma had hired, also dismissed the Mirror report’s suggestion that Reshma had stayed in the house after her release from the hospital.
Source: The Daily Star
