2 factory owners, 2 engrs in police remand

A Dhaka court on Saturday placed two of the owners of the five readymade garment factories housed in the collapsed nine-storey commercial building in Savar on six-day police remand each in two cases.

Staff Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 27 April 2013, 06:43 AM
Updated : 27 April 2013, 09:05 AM

The court of Senior Judicial Magistrate Md Tazul Islam also remanded two engineers of the Savar Municipality to four days’ remand each in two other cases.

Those remanded are Mahmudur Rahman Tapash and Bazlul Samad Adnan, owners of New Weave Bottoms and New Weave Style, respectively, and Executive Engineer of the municipality Md Imtemam Hossain and Assistant Engineer Md Alam Mia.

Police arrested the two factory owners in the wee hours of Saturday and the two engineers in the morning.

Sub-Inspector of the Savar Police Station Kaisar Matubbar, also the Investigation Officer of the cases, produced the four in the Chief Judicial Magistrate’s Court in the afternoon seeking seven-day remand for each to interrogate them.

After the hearing, the court granted the police six days each to interrogate the factory owners in two cases, and four days each for the two engineers in two other cases.

The court also rejected the bail petitions of the accused.

Police and RAJUK had filed two cases at the Savar Police Station on Wednesday night accusing ill-constructed building owner Sohel Rana and the owners of the five garment factories located in the Rana Plaza for the loss of lives and property.

Many survivors had alleged that the owners of their factories forced them to go to work on Wednesday morning much against their will since they had seen the cracks the building had developed on Tuesday.

Sohel Rana, a Senior Joint Convenor of Awami League’s youth front Juba League’s Savar municipality unit, has been on the run since the collapse of the massive structure that has so far claimed around 340 lives.

The cases were filed on charges of structural faults and use of substandard and unspecified building materials in the construction of the building, and for the loss of lives and property.

The High Court on Thursday ordered the OC of Savar Police Station to ensure personal appearance of Rana, and the Chairmen and Managing Directors of all the five garment factories on Apr 30 before the court.

The death toll climbed to 346 as rescuers look for the last survivors under the debris three days after the huge structure came crushing down suddenly with big a bang in suburban township of Savar at around 8:30am on Wednesday.

Most of the victims were garment workers. The building housed the readymade garment factories, alongside 300 shops, which together employed nearly 6,000 workers.

Local residents say some 3,500 people were at work when the incident took place.

Rescuers have pulled out more than 2,500 people alive from the rubbles so far, but fear that the number of victims could go up sharply as many people were still trapped under the debris, for almost 80 hours now.