The owner and managing director of the Arefin Enterprise, a ship-breaking yard, were sued in connection with the deaths of four people on Thursday in a scrap ship of the yard in Chittagong district’s Sitakunda upazila.
Police lodged the murder case with the Sitakunda police station early yesterday under section 304 (B) of Criminal Procedure Code, said Iftekhar Hasan, officer-in-charge (OC) of Sitakunda police station.
At least four people – Faruk, 28, Jashim, 26, Arif, 28, and Gias Uddin, 30 – were killed and two others – Ramjan and Akbar – were poisoned to death after being exposed to toxic gas in a ship, MV Capital Lysenko, which had recently arrived at the yard.
The accused in the murder case are Abul Bashar, 46, brother and partner of the yard owner Kamal Uddin and Jashim Uddin, 45, managing director (MD) of the yard, said Aminul Islam, inspector (investigation) of Sitakunda police station.
The OC said the duo was sued for their negligence in supervising their workers in a risky scrap ship which caused the deadly incident.
With the Thursday incident the death toll rose to 101 at the ship-breaking yards in the port city since 2005.
A joint survey of the Greenpeace and International Federation for Human Rights in 2013 found that at least 1,000 workers have died in ship-breaking yards in last two decades.
According to the website of Bangladesh Ship Breakers Association (BSBA), a total of 179 ship-breaking yards are located in the Sitakunda coastal belt.
The ship-breaking industry in Sitakunda started operation in 1984. They provide direct and indirect employment of several lakhs of people in the area.
But most of yards amongst 179 are running their operations ignoring all rules and regulations of the government that cause unexpected deaths of workers, the BSBA sources said.
The Directorate of Environment (DoE) sometimes fined the yards for their irregularities but there has been no improvement so far, added the sources.
Nazim Uddin, vice-president of the BSBA, said the accident happened on Thursday as the workers did not know how to handle a scrap ship with toxic elements.
“It is not possible to look after the huge number of workers who come to ships to purchase scrap materials,” he said adding that the association would take an initiative to train those who come to work at shipyards from outside.
The High Court in December 2010 asked the government to close down the unauthorised ship-breaking yards and ensure the safety of workers while the Supreme Court directed the government to formulate a set of rules by December 14, 2011 to free the ship-breaking industry from pollution and ensure workers’ safety.
Only two shipyards, S K Steel and S K Shipyard, owned by AKM Aminul Islam, which were set up destroying coastal forest at Sitakunda upazila’s Maddha Sonaichhari in Chittagong in 2009, were evicted on February 24 this year.
RSM Munirul Islam, deputy conservator of forests in Chittagong, said about 400 acres of land of forest department were occupied by 22 ship-breaking yards destroying huge coastal forest boundary, comprising mangrove and non-mangrove trees, built by the forest department in 1991-92 to protect the coastal belt.
