Five labourers including three of a family died in their sleep when cement bags, piled up in an under-construction amusement park in Narayanganj, fell on them yesterday.
Police identified the deceased as Aku Munshi, 50, of Rajbari, his son Rakib, 20, nephew Asiruddin, 20, Zahid, 22, and Nazmul, 27, of Kurigram.
The five labourers had gone to sleep in a tin-shed warehouse where a pile of cement bags was kept for the construction work of the park, RK Greenland, at Godnail of Siddhirganj.
As they did not join the work in the morning, other labourers went out to search for them. At one stage, the labourers entered the warehouse and found the workers buried under a pile of sacks of cement around 8:30am, police and witnesses said.
On information, police recovered the bodies from the park, being constructed by RK Group, and sent those to Dhaka Medical College Hospital morgue for autopsies, said Kamrul Alam Mollah, officer-in-charge (OC) of Siddhirganj Police Station.
Getting to sleep in the middle of piles of cement bags is very risky. The labourers died due to the negligence of the owner of the firm which is responsible for the construction work of the park, the OC alleged.
There are some tin-shed houses for night time stay of the workers. As those were not sufficient for a large number of labourers, many used to sleep inside the warehouse, fellow workers said.
They also claimed that Noor Alam, a security guard, resisted their entering the warehouse when they were searching for the missing labourers.
Abdul Hye, another security guard, said 1,050 sacks of cement and other construction materials including rods, hammers have been kept inside the warehouse.
The workers used to sleep in rows by the side of the piles of cement bags at night, he added.
Expressing sorrow over the incident, Abul Hossain, assistant general manager of RK Group, said though there were sufficient rooms for the labourers they went to sleep in the warehouse.
Sheikh Nazmul Alam, district police super, said legal actions will be taken after identifying the persons responsible for the deaths.
-With The Daily Star input
