Nobody seems to learn from previous factory fire tragedies. Neither the greedy owners of such factories nor the government employees who are meant to inspect such facilities on a regular basis take their responsibilities seriously. The government employees are, almost certainly, generously bribed to look the other way.
Sitakunda will no longer be known as the place where pilgrims climb to the famous Chandranath temple on a hill or the place where there is a temple where this writer has seen a well which had “fire dancing on the water.”
Sitakunda will, instead, be remembered and known as the place where exploited workers die in the ship-breaking yards, and now as the place where the joint owner of the container depot also illegally stored explosive and dangerous chemicals made by another of his businesses.
Equally guilty are the government inspectors who do not seem to care about the safety of anyone. All they are interested in, it seems, is to line their pockets as quickly as possible.
All, in my mind, are guilty of mass murder.
However, legal cases of other murders by fire such as Chawkbazar in 2019 (approximately 70 deaths) and Nimtoli in 2010 (123 deaths) just go on and on in the courts. Both these were also chemical warehouse explosions. Has justice ever been achieved, will it ever be served? Have the contents of these chemical warehouses in Old Dhaka moved to safer places? Of course not, but the pockets and bank balances of the murderers are probably over-flowing.
It is astonishing that to distract people away from the probable truth, we read in newspapers of June 8 that a minister was suggesting that the fire could have been one of sabotage to distract international and other observers from the inauguration of the Padma Bridge later this month.
Opinions and voices such as this should be silenced, pending the investigation reports.
Corruption in Pakistan era
This discussion about corruption reminds me of another discussion I had in Bihar, India, with a former Oxfam colleague over 50 years ago, before the emergence of Bangladesh.
He had lived in Old Dhaka for some time in the mid-1950s and recalled a visit he had made to Chittagong where he came across a big noticeboard which advertised the “Central Office of Report and Direction,” and which in Bengali, Urdu, and English, stressed the efforts the authorities were making to put down corruption and to apprehend wrong-doers.
The general public were urged to bring to the notice of the CORD -- which was conveniently open both day and night for the purpose -- any cases of injustice and unfair treatment and if necessary they were to go to the “top man.” However, now that corruption is endemic and a way of life for many in “free” Bangladesh, it seems that there is no need for a 24 hours complaints office as there was in those Pakistan days.
In Bangladesh
I was here, in Dhaka, in January 1972, when Bangabandhu spoke out strongly about corruption, and he strongly reminded government employees that “they are not masters, but servants of the people.”
It was significant that, during Mujib Borsho, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina felt the necessity to regularly warn people about corruption. Two pieces of news caught my attention last year. The first reported that at an online meeting with all secretaries of the public service on August 18, 2021, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said that public servants will face tough punishment if anyone indulges in corruption. The prime minister was reported as saying: “As we are providing various facilities, we will not tolerate any corruption.”
Deaths on the roads
In addition, when writing about death by fire, we should not forget those who are killed in road accident fires and, again, nothing is being done about this either. It continues to be easy to bribe at all levels of the BRTA and the traffic police in Dhaka continue their easy way of life of accepting ghoosh on a regular basis.
Everything stays as it is as far as lack of safety on the roads is concerned because it is very easy to “buy” a driving licence or a fitness certificate for a bus or truck. At the Gulshan-2 crossing sometimes, police can be seen reprimanding a driver for “jumping” the stop light, the red light. This is their source of daily pocket money.
However, over the last 24 years in Gulshan/Banani, I have never seen police challenging motorcyclists or pedestrians for breaking the law and not observing the Highway Code. They cause the deaths of many people too by not following the rules.
The last word
It is worth noting what the first Police Constable’s Manual, written in the 1860s in a Question & Answer format, says about corruption:
Q What is the greatest fault a Constable can commit?
A. The taking directly or indirectly of a bribe or any article of value (money or money’s worth) from anyone for the purpose of being induced to perform or to refrain from performing the strict letter of his duty.
Julian Francis has been associated with relief and development activities of Bangladesh since the War of Liberation. In 2012, the Government of Bangladesh awarded him the ‘Friends of Liberation War Honour’ in recognition of his work among the refugees in India in 1971 and in 2018 honoured him with full Bangladesh citizenship.
