A legal notice was issued yesterday seeking punishment of eight officials of the BIWTA, the authority to oversee operations of water vessels, for the tragic capsize of Pinak 6 launch on August 4 and their failure in the rescue operation.
The notice gave the authorities 72 hours to initiate a survey to determine the exact number of vessels operating in the country’s waterways, enforcing mandatory registration for each vessel and launching fitness checking programmes.
Supreme Court lawyer Enamul Haq Mollah issued the notice on behalf of Ashish Kumar Dey, convener of the National Committee for Protection of Roads, Waterways and Rail, and Tushar Rehman, general secretary of the Citizens’ Rights Movement.
Respondents of the notice are the shipping secretary, the director general of Department of Shipping, the BIWTA chairman, the traffic inspector and the inspector of Mawa-Kawrakandi river belt, the engineer and ship surveyor of Mawa region, the BIWTA officer at Mawa river port, the director of port department, the director of river security and traffic department and the director of river conservation and operations department.
Punishment has been sought for the eight officials except for the shipping secretary and the DG of the shipping department.
In the notice, lawyer Enam said: “Pinak 6 was carrying passengers beyond its capacity. On the other hand, the government officials concerned were not in Kawrakandi when the accident occurred.”
The notice said: “As the respondents did not monitor the activities and failed to stop the launch from taking excess passengers than its capacity, they are involved with the accident indirectly. That is why they should be punished.”
According to official count, the bodies of 45 passengers have so far been recovered from different rivers while 62 remain missing. The salvage operation was called off on August 11 as the rescuers could not find the vessel. The launch was reportedly carrying around 300 passengers from Kawrakandi to Mawa.
When it capsized, the Pinak 6 was operating on a temporary conditional permission from the authorities. The conditional permit was given after the management of the launch had applied for an operation permit, officially known as “survey certificate,” in April; but the decision on the permit is still pending.
The 19.5-metre-long launch also did not have any valid certificate from the Shipping Department to operate on the Mawa-Kawrakandi route in the Padma River. One of the conditions for the temporary permission of the launch was that it was allowed to carry maximum 85 passengers at a time.
