Three months after the deadly collapse of the Rana Plaza garment complex, authorities here face a key question—whether to charge anyone with a crime in connection with one of the world’s worst industrial accidents, reports The Wall Street Journal.
Twenty-one people are being held in jail in connection with the April 24 disaster, which killed more than 1,100 people. But no one has been charged.
The police say they hope to file formal charges soon against some of the people detained, possibly as early as July 31, when a court hearing is scheduled for all of them. The range of possible outcomes under Bangladesh law is broad — from no charges at all, to charges of culpable homicide, which carries a potential punishment of life in prison, according to a senior police official and the Bangladesh penal code as described in a report by the Home Ministry.
The latest arrest came late Wednesday, when the police detained Mohammad Refatullah — the mayor of Savar, where the complex is located — alleging that he had allowed the complex to be built without mandatory permits from a national building-safety agency. Shortly after the collapse, Refatullah had told The Wall Street Journal in an interview that he had issued permits for ‘many factories in the area’ because the permit process was too slow. He couldn’t be reached for comment after his arrest.
Lawyers for several of the other most prominent people in jail, including owners of five factories that were located in the complex, have denied accusations that their clients are to blame for the disaster.
Rana Plaza owner Sohel Rana, who also is detained, isn’t represented by counsel and couldn’t be reached for comment. After his April 28 arrest, Rana denied responsibility, telling local television that the garment factory owners had put pressure on him to keep the building open.
The police also have reopened an investigation into a fire at the Tazreen Fashions factory at Ashulia November 2012 that killed more than 100 people. The police are expected to decide whether to file charges in that case as early as Sunday, when the High Court is scheduled to hold its next hearing in the matter.
In the past, investigations against factory owners in Bangladesh have come up empty; no factory owner has ever been formally charged with a crime relating to an industrial accident, despite many accidents over the years, according to police and observers. An earlier police investigation into the Tazreen fire blamed ‘unidentified miscreants,’ and no one was charged.
The police acknowledge they have struggled to hold anyone to account for industrial disasters. But they say the Rana Plaza case marks a turning point, and that someone will be held responsible, whether it’s some of the people in jail now, or others.
‘There is a lot of attention on this,’ said Bijoy Krishna Kar, assistant superintendent of police at the Bangladesh Criminal Investigation Department, who is heading the investigation into the Rana Plaza collapse. ‘Everyone wants to see justice done.’
A government committee set up to investigate the collapse accused Rana and the factory owners of culpable homicide, reckless use of heavy machinery including generators on upper floors and forcing workers into a risky building.
In addition to Rana and the factory owners, those arrested include three engineers who allegedly said the building was safe after a crack was discovered. All three denied responsibility during bail hearings and remain in custody. Others include several people whose names haven’t been released who are suspected of helping Rana evade police before he was arrested on the Indian border four days after the accident.
Rana and the factory owners are being held in Kashimpur jail, a high-security facility about 25 kilometres north of Dhaka. A jail official reached by phone said they aren’t receiving any special treatment and are being held in normal, non-air conditioned cells in a region where daily temperatures rise as high as 35 degrees Celsius.
Legal experts say they believe the most likely outcome is that authorities will charge at least some of the individuals with ‘death due to negligence,’ which carries a maximum sentence of five years. Kar, the police superintendent, said he believes there is strong evidence of negligence on the part of some of the detained, though he didn’t specify which ones. He declined say whether some might be released without charge.
Activists are trying to keep up the pressure on authorities to make faster progress on the cases. Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust, a nongovernmental organization that represents factory workers, has filed a series of petitions asking courts to make public the status of the investigations and to freeze Rana’s assets. It also filed a petition last year in the Tazreen case that led a Bangladeshi court to order the government to state what it is doing to investigate that case.
‘Over the last 20 years, a culture of impunity has been built up where owners have never been held accountable for disasters in their own factories,’ said Syed Sultan Uddin Ahmed, assistant executive director of the Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies, which tracks conditions in the garment industry. ‘If nothing happens after Rana Plaza, faith in the system will be totally destroyed.’
Some workers, meanwhile, are angry that authorities have punished labourers for holding protests after the Rana Plaza disaster.
Mousumi Akter, 20, a Rana Plaza survivor, says she was beaten and briefly detained at a protest in June involving fellow survivors and family members seeking compensation for their injuries.
‘We are being beaten on the street for demanding compensation, but we don’t know what’s happening to the owners,’ she said.
Aminur Rahman, an inspector in the local police station in Savar where the protest occurred, said police responded after protesters blocked the road and threw stones at the officers. He denied that police used excessive force.
Many activists believe police are afraid of pushing too hard to punish factory owners, many of whom are politically powerful, given their role in one of the country’s most important industries. Government officials have denied the industry exercises undue influence.
The case of the Tazreen fire from last November could offer an indication of which way the authorities are heading. In the initial investigation, police found no evidence against factory owner Delwar Hossain, said Badrul Alam, the police chief in the town of Ashulia, where the Tazreen factory is located.
A government inquiry into the fire found otherwise. A report from the home ministry investigation, viewed by The Wall Street Journal, says Hossain showed ‘unpardonable negligence’ for faulty construction, inadequate fire-fighting facilities and flammable yarn on the ground floor.
That report, marked ‘secret’ by the Home Ministry, was sent to the police three months ago to aid their investigation, said Hossain’s lawyer, Golam Rabbani. He said that neither he nor Hossain had seen the report. He said he couldn’t comment on guilt or innocence since Hossain hasn’t been charged.
The investigation recently was reopened on the order of Bangladesh’s high court in response to a petition by labour activists. Alam, the police chief, said charges could be brought after the investigation was completed.
-With New Age input
