Police have not named the owners of BM Container Depot in their case in connection with the fire there earlier this month that has claimed 46 lives so far.
Sub-Inspector Ashraf Siddiqui of Sitakunda police station filed the case on June 7, accusing eight people of negligence and mismanagement.
The accused include two officials of the depot severely injured in the blaze.
The key accused in the case is the depot’s deputy general manager of operations, Nurul Akter, who lost a hand in the fire.
The second accused is its administrative manager, Khaledur Rahman – 12% of whose body’s surface area was burnt in the incident.
Now their families were accusing the police of acting irresponsibly, Bangla Tribune reported in a news article published on Thursday.
Nurul’s relative AR Sohel told the media outlet: “His condition is very serious; he is fighting for his life. I was shocked to hear that he had been made the key accused.”
“On Saturday (June 4) Nurul left the office and went home. He rushed back to his workplace after hearing about the fire later that night. He started working to put out the flames. Suddenly his left hand got blasted away, chunks of flesh fell off from his thighs. He is currently receiving treatment at Chittagong Medical College Hospital. We are thinking about taking him to Dhaka as his condition is critical.”
Nurul’s nephew Nazrul Islam Babu said: “My uncle does not own the depot, so why was he accused in the case? He is just an employee. He is now on his deathbed after trying to save the depot. But the police have accused him [for the fire].”
Khaledur Rahman’s son-in-law Rakib Uddin told Bangla Tribune: “Doctors said my father-in-law's condition was not good and might worsen at any moment. Making him an accused in the case is inhumane in such circumstances.”
“He is just an employee. Why was he accused? The owners are supposed to be the accused,” he said.
Rakib continued: “He was home at the time of the accident. He went back to the depot after hearing about the news and tried to douse the fire with his colleagues. 12% of his body surface area got burnt while trying to put out the blaze. He was taken to Sheikh Hasina National Institute of Burn and Plastic Surgery (in Dhaka) from Chittagong as his condition was critical. Making him an accused in this situation is nothing but irresponsible behaviour from the police.”
‘Depot owners absolved of responsibilities’
Advocate Akhter Kabir Chowdhury, general secretary of the Chittagong chapter of the rights organization Shujan, termed the deaths from the fire murders. “The deaths were not caused by negligence in duty.”
The police had absolved the depot owners of their responsibilities by not naming them in the case, he said.
“The depot officials and workers must have notified the owners when the fire broke out. Did the owners inform the Fire Service and other agencies about the chemicals at the depot? Did they have trained manpower to store and manage the chemicals? Then why should the owners not be the accused?”
When asked about the matter, Sitakunda Additional Superintendent of Police Md Ashraful Karim said the eight named in the case stood accused of negligence and mismanagement.
“Many more unknown individuals have been accused in the case,” he said, adding that if the deaths turned out to be murders in the course of the investigation, the case would become a murder case.
Dozens were killed and hundreds were injured in the fire that broke out at BM Container Depot in Sitakunda upazila of Chittagong on the night of June 4.
The death toll as of Friday afternoon stands at 46, but officials fear it could rise as many of the victims are critically injured and some people remain missing after the explosions.
Although the reason behind the fire has yet to be unearthed, Fire Service officials confirmed that they had not been informed that chemicals had been stored at the depot.
The police filed the case on June 7 accusing eight persons, all of whom are employees of the depot.
Through joint efforts, the Fire Service, law enforcement agencies and the army managed to fully douse the fire on Wednesday morning, around 86 hours after the fire started.