Leader of the opposition Khaleda Zia has castigated Home Minister Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir for his recent remark on the collapse of Rana Plaza and urged Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to remove him from Cabinet.
Talking to BBC Bangla recently, Alamgir claimed the multi-storey commercial building at Savar might have collapsed due to jerking of its vulnerable pillars by opposition activists on Apr 24.
”If we wanted, we would shake the government but not any building,” Khaleda told a rally of her party-led 18-party alliance at Dhaka’s Motijheel area on Saturday afternoon.
She said the Prime Minister should try to work for the future of the country during the rest of her government’s tenure by ‘getting rid of insane ministers’ from the cabinet.
Jatiya Party Chairman HM Ershad had also slammed Alamgir for his remarks on Friday.
Ershad said Alamgir was suffering from “mental disorder”. “I had earlier said that he (Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir) should not be there in the Cabinet,” he had said.
Speaking at Saturday’s rally, Khaleda also described Alamgir as a ‘Razakar’.
Khaleda also blamed the government for ‘failing to rescue most of those trapped in the collapsed Rana Plaza alive’.
“If the rescue effort had started on time, many more people could have been rescued alive. The government failed but it also did not allow others to join the rescue operation,” Khaleda Zia said.
She alleged the government was not coming clean on exact casualties in what is easily the country’s worst-ever industrial disaster.
“Still many people are missing. The official count by the government is much less than the real one.”Khaleda also alleged Hasina, also the President of Awami League committed falsehood over the political identity of Shohel Rana, the owner of the collapsed high-rise.
”The Prime Minister lied several times. In Parliament she said Rana does not belong to her party. It was later seen that Rana is the Joint Convenor of Juba League,” she said.
Khaleda alleged such disasters would destroy the garment industry of the country, as its many inadequacies had come to the fore.
Duty-free access offered by Western countries and low wages have helped turn Bangladesh’s garment exports into a $19 billion a year industry, with 60 percent of clothes going to Europe.
But now, the European Union is considering trade action against Bangladesh.
Source: Bd news24
