More than 1,100 people
were killed and around 2,500 others injured when the building in Dhaka’s Savar,
which housed several garment factories, collapsed in a heap on Apr 24, 2013.
Inspector Md Asaduzzaman
of police’s prosecution wing said Senior Judicial Magistrate Md Al-Amin on
Monday fixed Jan 27 as the next date of hearing.
The court directed police
stations concerned to report on the execution of the arrest warrants on that
day, he told bdnews24.com.
It also ordered the
confiscation of the fugitives’ assets.
Savar police had initially
filed a case of ‘death due to negligence’, accusing 21 people including the
building owner Sohel Rana.
But they later brought
charges against 41, accusing all of them of murder.
The city development
authority, RAJUK, filed another case against 13 people, including Rana, with Savar
police, charging them with flouting Bangladesh National Building Code.
Veteran lawyer Aminul Gani
Tito said the case may go in a limbo after going into High Court as the lower
court has accepted the chargesheet which names five government officials without
approval from the public administration ministry.
The five officials are
Abdus Samad, Jamshedur Rahman, Belayet Hossain, Yusuf Ali and Sahidul Islam.
Inspector Asaduzzaman said
the public administration ministry was asked to give permission after the
chargesheet was submitted, but it told the court that the five were ‘not
involved’.
“The court did not find its
report believable and that is why it accepted the chargesheet without approval
from the ministry,” he added.
Apart from the 23 fugitives,
of the 18 others who were named in the chargesheet only Sohel Rana is behind
bars. The rest are out on bail.
Investigations had found
that the building’s additional construction was illegally done, low-quality
materials were used and its plans were faulty.
A Dhaka court on Jul 8 accepted
charges in this case and issued arrest warrant for six people running from the
law.
Criminal Investigation
Department Assistant Superintendent Bijay Krishna Kar filed the chargesheets in
both the cases in court on June 1.
