The Home Ministry inquiry committee, formed to investigate the Savar tragedy, in its preliminary investigation, found the owners of Rana Plaza and the garment factories housed in the huge complex responsible for the dreadful incident.Talking to UNB, Mainuddin Khandokar, the head of the probe body formed by the Home Ministry, said, “The owner of the Rana Plaza set up the building by violating the Building Code and using his political clout.”
“The owners of the building and garment factories forced the workers to work in the building on the fateful day though the cracks had appeared in it two days ago. It’s not an accident as it happened due to their negligence,” he said after conducting a two-day inquiry into the incident.
Mainuddin Khandokar, also the additional secretary of the Home Ministry, said a question has been raised over the ownership of the land on which the Rana Plaza had been constructed.
He said they are trying to know about the real ownership of the land through local land officers.
Khandokar said they will talk to the representatives of different organisations engaged in rescue operation and the local administration to unearth the reasons behind the building crash.
“Letters will be sent to them either today (Sunday) or tomorrow (Monday) in this regard,” he added.
“We’re looking into whether the building code was followed in constructing the building, inspection by the concerned engineers done and required amount of construction materials were used…,” said the probe body chief.
The Home Ministry formed the five-member probe committee on Thursday, headed by Mainuddin, to dig out the reasons behind the building collapse and identify those responsible for it.
The committee has been asked to submit its report within seven working days.
Mainuddin said additional deputy commissioner of Dhaka district has been included in the probe team dropping Savar’s UNO.
Besides, two more members were included in the probe team raising its member to seven, he added.
The probe body head further said they prepared a preliminary inquiry report on the basis of information gathered from the local people and reports published in the media.
He hoped that they will be able to submit the final report on the incident by the deadline.
Four more probe committees were also formed to investigate the incident on Thursday. UNB
