Staff Reporter :
The High Court on Sunday asked the attorney general to communicate with the health and labour secretaries for ensuring proper treatment for the victims who were injured in last Thursday’s deadly fire at a Rupganj, Narayanganj, food processing factory.
The court at the same time asked the authorities concerned to publish a list of the injured and the under treatment victims.
The High Court bench of Justice M Enayetur Rahim passed the order after holding hearing on a writ petition filed by four rights organizations seeking its directives for compensation for the victims and for conducting an enquiry into the incident.
Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK), Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST), Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (BELA) and Safety and Rights Society (SRS) filed the petition on Saturday as a public interest litigation to the HC.
Lawyer ZI Khan Panna, Sara Hossain and Aneek R Haque appeared in the hearing for the writ petitioners, while Deputy Attorney Generals Samarendranath Biswas and Bipul Bagmar represented the state.
Barrister Sara Hossain placed argument in the court seeking directives upon the respondents to pay compensation to the injured victims and families of the deceased employees.
Then justice M Enayetur Rahim said, “My jurisdiction is very limited. I cannot issue any rule as I am running a single-member bench.”
The court also refused to pass any order over the compensation, as the appellate division had questioned a High Court’s compensation order passed earlier without issuing rule.
It also asked the writ petitioners to wait till the identification of the deceased victims’ bodies to place the petition in a regular High Court bench for directives on compensation.
The court said, “The whole nation is shocked at the incident of fire that caused deaths and injuries to a number of people. We are also shocked. We didn’t expect such incident. A criminal case has already been filed over the incident. Almost all the persons who own the company have been arrested in the case. But the trial is a matter of time. So we should wait now. We are also observing the situation.”
“Another thing is that only one body has been identified and handed over so far out of the 52 bodies that have been killed. It had not been possible to identify the remaining 51 bodies. There will be a DNA test and this process will take minimum 21 days.”
It is not possible to hand over the dead bodies as well as payment of the compensation to the victim families before completion of the DNA test, also said the court.
In the petition the rights organisations sought necessary directives upon the authorities concerned to pay Tk 1 crore as compensation to the families of each victim who died in the fire, and Tk 35 lakh to each injured victim.
They also prayed to the court for an order for conducting enquiry into the incident and to prosecute and punish those who are responsible for the incident.
At least 52 bodies were recovered from the six-storey food factory building in Naryanganj’s Rupganj till July 9 after the horrific fire that broke out last Thursday.
