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POLICE IN BANGLADESH have arrested eight people on murder charges in connection with a factory fire that killed at least 52 people, many of whom were trapped inside by an illegally locked door.
The blaze began at the five-storey Hashem Foods factory in Rupganj, just outside the capital Dhaka, on Thursday night, sending huge clouds of black smoke billowing into the sky.
Police discovered dozens of bodies on Friday afternoon after the fire was extinguished.
Jayedul Alam, police superintendent for Narayanganj district, said the eight people arrested are in custody.
Bangladesh’s home minister Asaduzzman Khan said among those detained is the chairman and managing director of Sajeeb Group, which owns the factory.
Visiting the factory site on Saturday, Mr Khan described what had happened as “murder”, and said those responsible will be punished.
Bangladesh has a tragic history of industrial disasters, including factories catching fire with the workers locked inside.
In similar cases, owners have faced culpable homicide charges for their negligence.
Officials say the main exit of the factory that caught fire on Thursday was locked from the inside, and many of those who died were trapped.
One of them was 23-year-old Rima Akter, who made desperate calls to her family as the fire began to engulf the factory.
On Saturday, her mother and other family members struggled to identify her remains in the morgue at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
“We have checked 36 body bags, but it is very difficult to identify her,” her brother-in-law Arafat Rahman said.
Her mother cried as officials tried to reassure several families waiting outside the hospital that the bodies would be returned once DNA tests have been carried out, as most had suffered severe burns.
Forensic experts collected DNA samples from victims’ family members, and by late Saturday afternoon samples from 33 of the deceased had been collected, officials at the hospital said.
The factory is a subsidiary of Sajeeb Group, a Bangladeshi company that produces juice under Pakistan’s Lahore-based Shezan International. According to the group’s website, the company exports its products to a number of countries including Australia, the United States, Malaysia, Singapore, India, Bhutan, Nepal and nations in the Middle East and Africa.
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Shane on every Irish MEP who voted down these amendments, I’d wager all of their salaries none of them can adequately explain what they were voting on, the possible consequences of the vote or even why they voted how they did
*Shame
I doubt half of them even read the whole bill.
How can we find out who voted and what way they voted?
…they didn’t read it cos Fidelma forgot the Whiffy code. again….
After she was R/Fraped on Facebook
As long as I can still see the sexy ladies tis grand!!
Laying the groundwork for TTIP…
You certainly hit the nail on the head with that one.
The US just signed the Cisa Cybersecurity bill yesterday …27 October
Cisa would “allow ‘voluntary’ sharing of heretofore private information with the government, allowing secret and ad hoc privacy intrusions in place of meaningful consideration of the privacy concerns of all Americans,” the professors wrote.
The data in question would come from private industry, which mines everything from credit card statements to prescription drug purchase records to target advertising and tweak product lines. Indeed, much of it is detailed financial and health information the government has never had access to in any form. The bill’s proponents said the data would be “anonymized”.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/27/cisa-cybersecurity-bill-senate-vote
I think we’ll all end up partying like it’s 1984 sooner than anyone could imagine.
Sounds like the Eurocrats really thought this one through….not
The internet was bad enough with a small number of companies buying up everything in site but its rightly f##cked now. This only favours big business. Just a few fig leaves thrown in to make it seem reasonable.
Amazing the admission from MEPs that they voted for full package as they were so keen to get the, voter popular, roaming free charges in place. Incredibly short sighted, as for the comment from KevJ that it would be amazing if “half of them read the bill” – not a hope in hell. From experience the number of those MEP who read the bill would be somewhere in the region of a dozen or so.
Most of the MEPs would have been handed a sheet from their EP political groups. On the sheet is the title of the legislation being voted on then a series of numbers (indicating the amendment) and ‘guidance’ from the parties on whether to Yes, No or Abstain.
have your say