Relatives of the Rana Plaza victims who are still missing six days in to the rescue operation demonstrated in front of the National Press Club yesterday, demanding the bodies of their loved ones.
Eyewitness said around 100 relatives of the missing victims staged a sit-in outside the press club around 11:45am.
The victims’ relatives said they searched through the recovered bodies on the premises of Adaharchandra School, and the morgues of Dhaka Medical College Hospital and Sir Salimullah Medical College Hospital.
During the half-hour programme, the aggrieved relatives accused the government of concealing a huge number of bodies.
They said they do not need money or donations from the government. They just want the bodies.
At the demonstration, the Dhaka Tribune met Sheuli, 10, who was searching for her father Ashraf Ali. The girl tearfully said: “I just want my father to come back to me, nothing else.”
Sheuli resided in Savar and had no one but her father to support her.
Arafat Azad, who is searching for his sister Samsur Nahar Shanta, told the Dhaka Tribune: “I only want my sister’s body, not any subsidy from the government. I will go back home after taking the body that is still missing.”
Hasi Akter from Dinajpur said her son- and daughter-in-law who used to work on the fourth floor of Rana Plaza were yet to be found.
“The authorities concerned might have hidden their bodies,” she said, an allegation echoed by many present at the demonstration.
Maj Gen Chowdhury Hasan Suhrawardy, GOC of the ninth infantry division that is leading the rescue operation, said they were doing their best to retrieve the bodies unharmed.
“Our first priority was to rescue the survivors from under the rubble, and now we are trying our best to search every corner for any clue of survivors or bodies,” he said.
Asked about the allegation, he said: “It is very painful if people think this way. We are rescuing people, risking our lives, and this kind of thought will break our mental strength.”
Maj Gen Suhrawardy added that people stopped vehicles and checked those if they were carrying bodies along with debris being dumped at three dumping sites.
The head of the rescue operation said: “We sent all the bodies and those survived the building collapse to hospitals. We do not know if any survivors succumbed to injuries on the way to hospitals.
