The injured in the Rana Plaza building collapse, family members of the deceased and also the relatives of those missing in the tragedy are passing their days in deep anxiety as the garment owners have not paid any compensation to them. ”My only earning sources were my daughter Rehena Begum and her husband Monsur Sheikh. Both used to work in Phantom Garments on the fourth floor of Rana Plaza and both were killed in the tragedy but I didn’t get any financial assistance from the government,” said Nazma Begum on Wednesday.
Her husband Ibrahim Miah, a small vegetable vendor at a place called Imadipur in Savar said the dead couple left a cute lovely son named Rihan Sheikh. “They had a dream to make their only son an army officer but I am totally unable to bear the expenses of taking care of the one-year-old,” an apparently frustrated Miah told The Independent.
Both Rehena and her husband Monsur used to bear the living expenses of our poor family. My wife and I used to take care of Rihan when his father and mother went to work at Rana Plaza, recalled a tearful Ibrahim.
Even after six months of the world’s worst ever building collapse, many RMG organizations, on Wednesday organized a human chain in front of the devastated Rana Plaza demanding compensations from the factory owners and international garment buyers.
The injured in the tragedy, family members of the deceased and also the relatives of the missing RMG workers also attended an agitation programme on the Savar outskirts of the capital. Industrial Global Union and United Federation of Garments Workers jointly organized the protest marking six months of the worst industrial tragedy of Bangladesh.
Speakers at the programme issued an ultimatum for payment of their compensations by December 25. If the international buyers namely Wallmart and Gap do not come forward with appropriate compensations, the Industrial Global Union and United Federation of Garments Workers will organize a token hunger strike against the two famous global brands.
Talking to The Independent, Garment Sromik Rokkha Andolon convener ZM Kamrul Anam said: ”Though few injured and family members of the deceased RMG workers got little compensations, the relatives of the missing RMG workers did not receive any compensation whatsoever either from the government or the garment owners.”
Earlier, the army that led the rescue operations at the Rana Plaza said that 261 people were still untraced. On September 1,the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) Directorate, the press wing of the military, issued that statement after scrutinizing the lists of the missing.
GOC Maj Gen Chowdhury Hasan Suhrawardy of the Nine Division of Bangladesh Army, who coordinated the whole rescue operation and the rehabilitation program, tried to collect a fund for giving some assistance among the relatives of the missing RMG workers. Talking to this correspondent at his Savar cantonment office in June last after receiving funds for the relatives of the missing victims, Maj Gen Chowdhury Hasan Suhrawardy said that they were planning to give Tk 25,000 to each family of the missing. However, Shahinur Islam, Director of the ISP on Wednesday said: ”He has no information about any fund for the missing relatives.”
Meanwhile, some injured victims of the tragedy who are taking vocational training as part of a rehabilitation programme said they are worried about their future as nobody has so far come forward with any help for them.
In the Rana Plaza tragedy, the death toll stands at 1,132 including 17 people who died while undergoing treatment at hospitals. Of 834 deceased, 371 were male.
-With The Independent input
