Bangladesh Bank officials face questions over fire in office building

Bangladesh Bank officials were being questioned over a fire in their Motijheel offices.  

Staff Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 28 March 2017, 03:33 PM
Updated : 28 March 2017, 04:28 PM

A probe committee by the Fire Service visited the 14th floor of the central bank's headquarters that caught fire last week.

"We are here to record statements of these officials. We'll talks to as many people as possible until 7pm," said Samarendra Nath Biswas, the Fire Service deputy director heading the committee's investigation, on Tuesday.

"We'll come back tomorrow to question the remaining people. We are trying to find out what exactly happened."

He said the committee was hoping to submit their findings within five working days.

On Mar 22, the office of the Foreign Exchange Policy Department on the 14th floor of the central bank's multi-storey headquarters caught fire around 9pm.

Both the central bank and the Fire Service formed committees to investigate the cause of the fire.

"We've submitted a request to see the CCTV footage from that night. We don’t have it yet," said Samarendra.

"Our first task is to find the cause of the fire. We are checking if any of them (BB staffers) committed negligence.

"We have been saying from the first that a short circuit maybe behind this. It might have been an electric kettle."

"We are not seeing this as arson. Arsons leave certain traces which are absent in this situation."