Traders say they want to restart their businesses at Gulshan’s DNCC market which suffered a massive fire.
They have urged the prime minister’s help in rebuilding the marketplace.
Hundreds of shops were destroyed in the blaze that raged on throughout Tuesday.
Twenty-two fire trucks worked to douse the fire but there was smoke coming out of some areas on Wednesday.
The smell of charred ruins filled the air as firefighters continued to spray water. A businessman was seen checking the debris to see if there was anything retrievable. There were about 600 shops inside the Gulshan-1 market set up on seven acres of land.
Divided into two parts, the shops in the lower He also blamed the city corporation authorities and Metro Group for the deadly fire that damaged several hundred shops. The market will be resumed temporarily tomorrow (Friday) on the ashes of the market, he said.
To a question, Abul Kashem warned of movement if the authorities do not compensate them.
Shops were allocated to businessmen in 1983. As such, the DNCC authorities must allocate us plots if any new building is constructed, he argued. “The Dhaka North City Corporation wants to build a new establishment in this land. The authorities floated tender for the new building in 2010 without any consultation with the traders. The Metro Group got the contract. Two petitions filed against the decision are still pending with the High Court,” the Kitchen market’ President Sher Mohammad told The New Nation.
“We believe that gun powder was used to set fire to the market; otherwise, the building would not have collapsed. Metro Group is involved in the arson attack,” Sher Mohammad claimed. Joint Secretary of the Paka Market businessmen’s association Md Akhtaruzzaman said, “We will rebuild the shops as soon as possible since the structure of the Paka Market did not collapse. Finance Secretary of the market committee Md Salauddin, said they had their own fire extinguishers. But the fire spread so quickly that they had no chance to use those. Yousuf, owner of Bhai Bhai Confectionary, said that he invested all his savings in the shop. Unfoertunately all my investments were burnt to ashes. I don’t know what to do now.” “I screamed and ran with my colleague Matiur Rahman to that place. Matiur tried to douse the fire using a fire extinguisher, but the blaze spread very fast.”
According to sources, the market was established on 7.7 bighas of lands in 1963.
Later, the Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) took a decision to build an 18-stroied modern market there under Public Private Partnership (PPP) project in 2003. But the construction firm refused to build the market after getting the work order in 2005. Then the DCC invited a re-tender. At this stage, the MRS Amin Associates Oversease got the work order on condition of 73 percent shares for them and 27 percent for the DCC and started the construction work on September 25 in 2006.
But the caretaker government postponed the construction work early 2007, and in a new deal, the DCC got the 37 percent share in 2009. At the final stage, the shop owners protested against construction of the modern market building there and two separate cases were filed with the courts.
The investigation body is working to consider all the possible causes of the origin of the fire, said Major Shakil Newaj, Director (operation) of the Fire Service and Civil Defence.
“We will submit the report to the authorities within a shot time,” he said.
