Horrors still haunt Nimtoli
Five years have gone by, but the horrors of the devastating fire that claimed 124 lives still haunt the residents of Nimtoli in Old Dhaka.
Runa Akhter has not set foot in that neighbourhood since the fire gutted their house on June 3, 2010. Her engagement party was underway when the fire broke out.
"I cannot go there … It reminds me of that dreadful day I lost my mother and several relatives," said Runa, who now lives with her husband Jamil in Hosni Dalan area, adjacent to Nimtoli.
Jamil, a trader, also lost his family members and relatives in the fire.
After the tragedy, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina took up the guardianship of Runa, her elder sister Ratna and their brother Faisal.
Later, the weddings of Runa and Ratna were held at the Gono Bhaban.
"We are proud that she called us daughters. We have her blessings and we hope her blessings will be there also for our children," Ratna told The Daily Star.
She said they could not always communicate with the PM but they got to meet her at least once in the month of Ramadan.
The two sisters also expressed gratitude to local Awami League leader Haji Selim for his constant support and role as a local guardian.
Unlike Runa and Ratna, Gulzar Khan is left with no choice but to stay at his five-storey house where 11 of his family members were burned to death.
"I do not want anyone to make the same mistake I made by renting out a place to people without checking their backgrounds," he said.
The deadly fire spread from his house's ground floor that his tenant, Mohammad Ohid Ullah Mazumder, had used to store chemicals.
Gulzar and his two brothers
have been claiming that they rented out the place to Ohid for storing plastic goods, not chemicals.
But locals refuse to accept this claim.
“How could he [Gulzar] not know that chemicals were stored there while he lived on the fourth floor of the same building,” said shopkeeper Mohammad Mamun Mia whose seven-year-old son Boishakh was killed on that fateful night.
"Five years have passed but we are yet to get justice. Even the godown owner has not been arrested,” he said.
Ohid went into hiding immediately after the incident.
Abdul Kuddus Fakir, officer-in-charge of Bangshal Police Station, said," A general diary [GD] was filed but no case was lodged in connection with the incident. Investigation was carried out based on the GD, but the suspect could not be arrested."
The government probe report suggested taking legal action against the godown owner and the landlord for storing chemicals illegally and causing the fire.
On Monday, a day before the fifth anniversary of the incident, some 500 Nimtoli residents held a human chain in the area, demanding removal of all chemical godowns from adjacent neighbourhoods.
Efforts from the Nimtoli residents made the area free from chemical shops and godowns, but the same didn't happen in the neighbouring areas.
Awal Hossain, commissioner of ward-33 that includes Nimtoli, said if any chemical warehouse was found in his ward, he would evict those with the help of locals.
Comments