HC orders travel bar for Tazreen owner

The High Court has ordered the owner of Tazreen Fashions to not leave the country and asked authorities to inform airports and land ports to remain alert.

The bench of Justices ABM Altaf Hossain and Quazi Reza-Ul Hoque passed the orders after hearing a writ petition on Sunday.

The Secretary to the Ministry of Home has been asked to execute the orders.

More than a hundred workers died in a devastating at the Ashulia’s readymade garment factory on Nov 24.

The court ordered the Home Secretary, Labour Secretary, BGMEA President and Inspector General of Police to produce Tazreen’s Managing Director Delwar Hossain before court on May 30.

The judges also issued a rule on the Home Secretary, BGMEA President, IGP, DMP Commissioner, Officers-in-charge of Savar and Ashulia police stations, owner of Tazreen Fashions, DG of Fire Service and Civil Defence, Assistant Director for Dhaka Division. They will have to answer the court in four weeks.

The rule asked them why their ‘lack of initiative’ to arrest owner of Tazreen Fashions, whose ‘voluntary negligence’ led to the death of 112 workers in a massive factory fire, should not be declared illegal.

It also asked why the court should not order the Home Secretary, IGP, DMP Commissioner and Savar and Ashulia OCs to take legal action against the owner of the factory.

Supreme Court lawyer Jyotirmoy Barua had filed the writ petition for anthropologists Naznin Akhter Banu, Saydia Gulrukh Kamal and Mahmudul Hasan Sumon on Apr 28.

The workers who survived said there was large number of victims since the collapsible gate of the factory was locked from the outside when the fire happened. Some of the dead victims could not even be identified.

Barua told bdnews24.com a report released by the Ministry of Home Affairs on Apr 17 held the owner of Tazreen Fashion responsible for the incident of fire but the police did not arrest him.

“Why should the owner of Tazreen not be arrested if the garment factory owners from Rana Plaza are arrested? Their nature of negligence is similar,” he said.

Delwar Hossain is not an accused in the only case that was filed with the Ashulia police over the deadly fire.