Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Monday requested the opposition BNP to call off their May 2 hartal considering the humanitarian ground as the rescue operation at Savar is going on. “It’s very disheartening that the opposition has called the hartal at a time when the rescue operation, treatment and rehabilitation works are going on,” she said after her visit to Enam Medical College Hospital and Savar CMH where a good number of Savar building collapse victims undergoing treatment. The BNP-led 18 party called the countrywide dawn-to-dusk hartal demanding the arrest of Rana Plaza owner Sohel Rana, garment factory owners and other issues for May 2.
“I would request them to withdraw the hartal and donate the money that will be spent on enforcing the hartal,” Hasina said questioning the reasons behind calling the shutdown programme . “For whom this hartal is, whom will it help actually?”
She mentioned that the owners of the building and the garment factories have already arrested, but there had been no arrest when such accident occurred during BNP’s rule and the army-backed caretaker regime.
Hasina said it was very much unlawful act to force garment workers to enter the factories despite knowing that the building was in great danger. “No one will be speared,” she categorically said.
The Prime Minister said she told the BGMEA and BKMEA leaders when they called on her after the incident that the government will not spare the garment factory owners and they would be arrested.
-With The Independent input
