The plant outside of Dhaka was owned by a member of former PM Sheikh Hasina’s cabinet.
Kamran Reza Chowdhury/Dhaka
Scores of people were feared missing after looters attacked a tire factory owned by a former minister in the deposed Awami League government and set the building ablaze, according to authorities and family members at the scene.
Police and fire officials did not release information about those believed to be missing in the fire that raged for 32 hours in the six-story building before it was contained early Tuesday. Officials also did not immediately share information about whether there were any deaths or injuries in the fire.
Outside the building, relatives of factory workers and others sought information hours later about the fate of their loved ones.
BenarNews saw a list with the names of at least 170 people who were still unaccounted for. The fire marked the latest incident in a breakdown of law-and-order in the three weeks since Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government fell amid massive student-led protests.
On Aug. 5, the day Hasina resigned and fled the country, two Gazi-owned businesses, the tire factory and Gazi Pipes, which were housed in the same plant, were set on fire by looters.
A fire service official expressed concern about the building following the fire that started at 10:30 p.m. Sunday.
“Possibly, the building will collapse as fire has severely damaged the pillars and basic structures,” Abdul Mannan, a deputy assistant director of the fire service and civil defense in Narayanganj, told BenarNews on Tuesday.
The fire ripped through the Gazi Group-owned factory in Narayanganj, about 20 km (12.5 miles) from Dhaka, following the arrest of Golam Dastagir Gazi, the former minister, on Sunday. He had served as textile and jute minister in Hasina’s 15-year-old government.
The district administration has formed an eight-member committee headed by Additional District Magistrate Hamidur Rahman of Narayanganj to investigate the fire.
An interim government headed by Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus has been struggling since it came to office on Aug. 8 with stabilizing the country in the wake of Hasina’s departure while trying to contain protests and looting. Amid the chaos of recent weeks, university students have been volunteering to help direct traffic and support flood-relief efforts, among other activities.
Meanwhile, family members of Md. Sharif, 28, a textile factory worker in Tarabo and resident of Dakshin Rupshi village in Narayanganj, told BenarNews that he was one of the missing people.
Sharif’s mother had been a cancer patient and his father had had cardiac problems, his cousin recalled.
“His wife and only son have been crying for him,” Md. Hridoy said.
“The people were encouraged by the looting of the prime minister’s house. As soon as the news of the arrest of Golam Dastagir Gazi spread Sunday morning, thousands of people from around the area thronged the factory premises to loot. My cousin Sharif went to the factory after his friends called him on the phone.
“At around 5 p.m., Sharif came to the house with some iron rods and other stuff taken from the factory. He had his dinner and went to the factory again at around 9 p.m. on Sunday. He last talked to us over the phone after 9:30 p.m.,” he said.
Hridoy blamed groups of miscreants for starting the fire. Authorities did not identify possible suspects.
“Two armed groups stormed the factory at night,” Hridoy said. “At one stage, one of the groups pulled the shutter and set the factory on fire while people were busy looting.”
Another man told a similar story on Tuesday about a family member. Md Amzad Hossain said his son-in-law Md Nizam, 38, had been missing since Sunday night.
“Two groups started fighting over control of the factory. His relatives who went to the factory called him to go there. He went there and could not come out as some people set the whole factory on fire,” he told BenarNews.
“Nizam has two children. His wife and children are crying for him. None can help us,” Hossain told BenarNews.
List
Hridoy said fire service and civil defense personnel began making a list on Monday of people missing since the fire began.
BenarNews has seen a copy of a list of 173 names which included Sharif along with videos of authorities gathering the information. Still, authorities have not confirmed its authenticity or released any information about possible victims.
Gazi Group officials did not respond to BenarNews requests for comments and the company’s website has been blocked.
Mannan, the deputy fire official, said firefighters reached the factory, which had been closed since Aug. 5, the day Hasina fled to India, within five minutes after the blaze began on Sunday night.
While the Gazi Group has not made a statement about the fire, Mannan said a few workers were in the factory at the time of the “deliberate” arson attack.
“When we reached the site, it was full of thousands of people who had been involved in looting and damaging the factory and the adjacent buildings. Initially, we rescued 34 people from the factory,” Mannan said.
“Each floor has a space of nearly 100,000 square feet. It was full of flammable items such as plastic and rubber raw materials. We saw an inferno,” Mannan said. “Most of the missing people went to take something from the factory.”
Professor Mustafizur Rahman, a fellow at the Centre for Policy Dialogue, a Dhaka-based economic think-tank, said attacking, looting and burning of the business establishments, no matter who owns them, was in no way acceptable.
“Gazi group has about 5,000 employees. This fire has made them jobless. The owner took loans from banks,” he told BenarNews. “Banks, insurance companies and the financial institutes will be severely affected.”
Bangladesh has seen its share of deadly fires – over 1,000 people have been killed in 190,000 fires over the last nine years, the nation’s fire service and civil defense reported in early March, after a blaze in a multi-story shopping mall killed at least 46 people. In 2019, at least 25 people were killed in a 22-story tower fire in Dhaka’s Banani neighborhood.
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