Arrest order for Delwar, 5 others

A Dhaka court yesterday ordered police to arrest Tazreen Fashions Managing Director Delwar Hossain, his wife Mahmuda Akhter and four others on homicide charges over one of the country's worst industrial disasters in 2012.
Senior Judicial Magistrate Wasim Sheikh passed the order after he accepted the charges brought against 13 people by Criminal Investigation Department Inspector AKM Mohsinuzzaman in the case linked with the blaze.  
Mohsinuzzaman, investigation officer of the case, on December 22, submitted a charge sheet to the court and sought arrest warrants for six of the accused, including Delwar and his wife, as they were on the run.
The four other fugitives are the garment unit's manager Abdur Razzak, quality manager Shahiduzzaman Dulal, production manager Mobarak Hossain Monju and engineer Mahbubul Morshed.
The court asked the officer-in-charge of Ashulia Police Station to submit a report by February 25 on execution of the arrest warrants.
As many as 112 workers, mostly women, were killed and scores of others wounded in the fire at Tazreen Fashions Ltd in Ashulia on the outskirts of the capital on November 24, 2012.
The following day, Ashulia police filed a case.
The fire at Tazreen, which used to produce and supply garments to international brands like Walmart, created a huge outcry at home and abroad.
In April last year, three anthropologists filed a writ petition with the High Court, seeking directives on the government to bring Delwar to book for his criminal liability for the deaths.
 The next month the HC asked the government to explain why it should not be directed to prosecute Tazreen owner Delwar for his alleged negligence in protecting his workers from fire.
Delwar appeared before the HC at every hearing on the petition, complying with a court order.
In June, a probe body formed by the home ministry submitted a report to the HC, saying there was “unpardonable neglect” on the part of the owner.
According to the charge sheet submitted by the CID, Delwar and his wife had constructed the building on a faulty design by the engineer, and illegally used the ground-floor walkway as a warehouse.
The garment unit did not have any fire exit whereas a provision of the labour law stipulates that there must be two exits in every factory, it said.
Managers and security guards were charged as they had insisted that workers should continue working, even though smoke was billowing from the ground floor where the fire began.
Fire alarms rang as soon as the blaze broke out. Panicked, the workers tried to rush out before the fire could spread to the other floors of the eight-storey building. But managers and security guards told them that it was nothing serious, the charge sheet reads.      
The other seven accused are manager (admin) Dulal Uddin, store-in-charge Hamidul Islam and Al Amin, security-in-charge Al Amin and Anisur Rahman, security guard Md Rana and loader Shamim Mia.
Of them, only security-in-charge Anisur is now behind bars while the six others are on bail.