Renewed calls have been raised for launching a fresh drive to recover human remains at the site of the collapsed Rana Plaza in Savar, following the discovery of some bones including a human skull under the debris yesterday morning.
According to the families of victims and workers’ rights groups, more than 100 people who worked at different garment factories housed in the nine-storey Rana Plaza had remained missing since the collapse of the building on April 24 last year.
The rescue operations were called off in May 2013 and DNA tests later managed to identify many of the bodies; however, many of the workers’ families continue to claim that they had not found traces of their relatives.
The latest discovery of human remains was made when some poor boys who collect scraps from garbage were rummaging through the rubble at the Rana Plaza site around 9:00am.
Mohammad Selim, a 35-year-old van-puller who was also walking around the debris at the time, said a human skull became exposed from under the soil that gave way when the children pulled off a piece of iron rod from the rubble.
“The boys shouted about finding a skull, and I rushed to them and saw it,” said Selim.
As the information started to spread in the crowded industrial suburb, some of the people who had been the first rescuers to reach the site after the collapse last year, again came to the site and started looking for human remains under the debris.
Abdur Rahman Tota and Siddiqur Rahman, two such rescuers, told the Dhaka Tribune when they reached the site they saw the skull and brought it outside the fences that cordoned the Rana Plaza site. Two more human bones were also found from the site.
However, Tota and Siddique later also found eight more human bones from Rana Plaza’s abandoned septic tank, which they claimed was rumoured to have been the dumping spot for human remains from the country’s biggest ever industrial disaster.
The locals later displayed the skull and 10 human bones on the altar of a sculpture that has been made in front of the Rana Plaza site in memory of the dead workers.
After finding out about the recovery of human remains, family members of some missing Rana Plaza victims rushed to the site. Shaheda came with picture of her daughter Kulsum, who was an “operator” in one of the factories housed in Rana Plaza.
But since the day of the collapse, she could not get any trace of her daughter.
“Even I could not find her through the DNA test,” said Sheheda, breaking into tears.
She added: “ I always think about my daughter and often come here wondering if she is still here.
“These [the skull and bones] might be my daughters… Or my daughter is still in this place [in the rubbles] like these skulls and bones,” Shaheda said.
Many locals, who also gathered to see the recovered human remains, claimed that when human remains were found by scrap collectors on previous occasions, the police had taken away the bones and dumped some in the building’s abandoned septic tank and threw away some in rivers.
“Police always try to hide this [recovery of human remains from the rubbles],” said Selim, the van-puller.
However, when local police arrived at the scene yesterday, some local and foreign journalists also reached the spot and witnessed the recovery.
A group of police personnel seized the recovered skull and bones from the spot and took it to the Savar police station.
Sub-Inspector of the station, Md Emdadul Huque, told the Dhaka Tribune that necessary steps would be taken in accordance with the law.
The victims’ relatives, on the other hand, demanded that bones and the skull be sent to the Dhaka Medical Collage Hospital for DNA test.
Taslima Akhter, coordinator of Bangladesh Garment Worker Solidarity, told the Dhaka Tribune that they have provided a list to the government containing the names of 146 missing workers.
“I think another recovery drive should be conducted in the rubbles of Rana Plaza, because I believe that the remains of many missing workers must be found there” Taslima added.