A Dhaka court on Monday placed Sohel Rana, the owner of Rana Plaza at Savar that collapsed last Wednesday killing at least 381 people, under a 15-days police remand in two separate cases filed against him. Along with Rana, the court also granted Anisur Rahman, owner of Ether Tex Ltd, 13-day police remand in two cases and Anil Das and Shah Alam Mithu, Rana’s accomplices who had been helping Rana to flee the country, into five-days remand each in the same cases.
Dhaka Senior Judicial Magistrate Washim Shekh, passed the order when police produced Rana before the court seeking a 20 days remand in two cases. Inspector of Detective Branch (DB) of Police Shahin Shah Paevez, also the investigation officer of the cases, produced the accused saying that they need police remand for interrogation and find out other accused who are involved with this incident and also find out the other clues of this violation of administrative order.
Defense counsel Khondoker Abdul Mannan Public Prosecutor of Dhaka district court prayed for allowing remand for proper investigation. He mentioned in his plea ”that the workers of at least two garment factories at Rana Plaza did not want to attend the work but the garments officials forced them to join their workplaces following a false assurance on the building’s safety from the local engineers and they also gave assurances that they will pay salary to them on the day.”
Earlier on Sunday, members of Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) arrested Sohel Rana from Benapole in Jessore.
Earlier on 27 April, another two accused Garment owners of New Wave Bottoms Chairman Bazlus Samad and its managing director Mahmudur Rahman Tapash were remanded for 12 days and two engineers of Savar municipality were remanded for 8 days. On April 28, Aminul Islam, 50, chairman of Phantom Apparels Ltd and also Phantom Tek Ltd on 11-days remand in two cases.
-With The Independent input
