Speaking at a rally on Wednesday, she said, “The dead bodies are still buried under there. I have heard that 900 people are still missing. There is no count to how many people were killed after being buried under the debris.
“The official count by the government is a reduced number.”
The BNP Chairperson said at a rally organised by Jatiyadabadi Sramik Dal at Narayanganj for observing May Day on Wednesday.
The historic May Day is being celebrated amidst the humanitarian crisis at Savar. The death toll in the nine-storey building collapse has risen above 400 as rescue efforts continue. The collapse has left many of its survivors disabled, as their limbs had to be amputated.
The majority of the victims are readymade garment workers from the five factories it housed.
The Army which is in charge of the rescue operation released a list of 149 still missing on Wednesday.
“We want an answer from the government when we say how many are actually trapped under the concrete, how many have been rescued. These statistics must be released to the public,” she added.
The BNP chief blamed the government for the horrific deaths since “a lot of workers could have been saved if the Army was speedily assigned to the rescue”.
She said the government ‘neglected’ the incident and failed to grasp the gravity of the loss.
“The Prime Minister or the Minister for Disaster Management did not visit Savar even after so many people lost their lives. The President and the Prime Minister should have visited immediately after the incident”.
“The Prime Minister was busy with the oath-taking ceremony. She held meetings with political leaders and activists on that day. If she only monitored the rescue a lot of lives could have been saved.”
“Why did she arrive at the open field five to six days after the collapse? This alone proves the government’s negligence towards the collapse at Rana Plaza,” the former Prime Minister asserted.
A people’s movement will ‘topple’ the government from power if it does not heed to the opposition’s demands, reiterated the BNP Chief.
“This government is murderous and doomed. Everyone has to play their role in order to remove them.”
“If they don’t leave on their own we will topple them with a mass movement and create such a situation that they will be forced to leave.”
The rally at Sonargaon’s Balur Maath was joined by thousands of workers from Narayanganj, Narsinghdi and Gazipur. A large number of the people at the rally were female garment workers.
Source: Bd news24
