At least eight people, including the managing director of a garment factory and an additional deputy inspector general of police, were killed in a fire in the city’s Mirpur area on Wednesday night.
The fire broke out on the second floor of the Tung Hai Sweater Factory housed in an 11-storey building near Mirpur Bangla College on Darussalam Road at 11:30pm.
The flames soon spread up to the fourth floor.
The additional DIG was named as ZA Morshed and the managing director of the factory as Mahbubur Rahman, also a director of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA).
BGMEA President Atiqul Islam rushed to the spot immediately after the incident and told reporters that the fire baffled him for the factory was closed during the incident.
“It is mysterious. We will investigate the incident,” he said.
The other victims are Mahbubur’s three friends – Comilla district Juba League President Sohel Mostafa Swapan, Emdadur Rahman Badal and Syed Nasim Reza – the DIG’s bodyguard Ripon Chakma, and the Tung Hai office assistant Mohammad Sahabuddin.
Another person identified as a painter died after he was brought to Dhaka Medical College Hospital, Khalilur Rahman, officer-in-charge of Darussalam Police Station told the Dhaka Tribune.
Major Mohammad Mahboob, Director (Operation and Maintenance) of the fire service and civil defence, told the Dhaka Tribune that the fire broke out about 11:30pm.
On information, 13 fire-fighting units rushed to the spot and tamed the flames after about one and a half hours of frantic effort.
The general manager of the factory, Jamedur Rahman, said the victims were having a meeting on the ninth floor of the building when the fire broke out.
He said Morshed and Mahbubur were close friends; Morshed came to visit his friend Mahbubur. The DIG went to the factory in a Pajero car.
When the fire broke out the victims tried to go down the stairs but as the fire raged the victims could not come out.
They tried to go to the roof of the factory but could not do so as well because it was locked; they died from suffocation.
Morshed Hasan, an on-duty doctor at the Emergency Department of the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases and Hospital (NICDH), said of the five brought to the hospital four, including factory’s managing director and the police officer, died soon after their arrival.
The other succumbed to his injuries later. The three other injured were rushed to the DMCH where they too succumbed to their injuries, hospital sources said.
Mohammad Borhanuddin, a security guard of the factory said the factory was closed when it caught fire and most of the workers left the factory around 7:00pm.
An electrical fault was fixed in the storehouse of the factory after the closure. He suspected that the fire might have originated there.
About the reason behind the fire, the director general of the fire service and civil defence, Brigadier General Ali Ahmed Khan said: “The fire might have broken out from an electrical short circuit that will be determined by the investigation.”
Forhad Ahmed, duty officer of the fire service and civil defence, told the Dhaka Tribune that the fire damaged valuables worth about Tk10m. Valuables worth Tk200m and Tk100m were recovered from the gutted floor.
However, a five-member probe body formed on Thursday to investigate the incident would submit its report within seven working days, he said.
The Deputy director of the fire service and civil defence of Dhaka, Jahurul Amin Mia is heading the probe body. The other members of the committee are assistant directors Ajit Kumar Amit and Mamun Mahmud, the senior SO of Mirpur Anowarul Haque and the senior SO of Mohammadpur, Abdul Alim.
Razu Ahmed, a sub-inspector of Sher-e Bangla Nagar Police Station told the Dhaka Tribune that the bodies of all the victims were handed over to their relatives from the hospital.
Additional DIG ZA Morshed was buried at Banani graveyard after his Namaj-e-Janazas at Rajarbagh Police Line and Gulshan Azad Mosque.
