Identities of 146 missing Rana Plaza workers listed

A labour organisation has prepared a draft list of workers who went missing after the collapse of Rana Plaza last year.

Staff Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 29 March 2014, 08:31 PM
Updated : 29 March 2014, 08:31 PM

The list compiled by ‘Bangladesh Garments Sromik Shonghoti’ on Saturday provided the full identities of 146 out of 183 missing workers who have been named.

The leaders of the organisation said it was gathering information on more missing workers.

The labour body made seven demands while revealing the list at a press conference at Dhaka’s Topkhana Road.

The army, which led the rescue operation in the wake of one of the most devastating man-made disasters, could not account for 261 people who were employed at the building’s various garment factories.

More than 1,100 lifeless bodies were pulled out of the debris while numerous survivors have been left maimed.

Taslima Akhtar, a leader of the labour group, said they also began efforts to identify the missing while the army and a team of government assigned inspectors were doing the same.

They combined their own findings with information gathered by the army and the government to come up with the list of 146 missing workers.

The government’s list has more names but the addresses provided there were found to be incomplete, she said. The families of the workers could not be found in the addressed mentioned there.

“But we are working on this,” said Akhtar. We believe there are actually more who are missing. We will soon provide a full list with their complete identities.”

Nine workers, whose names did not find mention in any other list, have been listed among the missing persons by the labour organisation, she said.
The organisation demanded that ill-fated day, April 24, be declared a national mourning day and Workers Safety Day.
Their other demands are – to clear discrepancies in the list of the dead and missing, to provide proper compensation to all victims and the DNA testing of all the mortal remains that had been recovered from the debris.
The labour leaders also wanted prompt punishment for building owner Sohel Rana.
The organisation will hold a rally at Shahbagh on Apr 25 to press for its demands.