Rupganj factory lacked firefighting tools

The Hashem Food and Beverage Factory in Narayanganj, where 52 workers died on July 8, did not have a fire exit and firefighting equipment, an independent investigation has found. 

The Citizen Investigation Committee said the factory did not have any fire alarm either. 

“Nobody was alerted when the fire broke out and so, the workers didn’t get enough time to get out of the building,” committee conveyor Jyotirmoy Barua said while revealing the findings at Dhaka Reporters’ Unity on Tuesday.     

Barua said the factory authorities knew that the building was vulnerable to fire, yet they did not take any steps. “We could not find out the reason behind the fire,” he noted.

Culture of impunity

Barua claimed that they had seen fire at the factory site eight days after the incident. “The Fire Service and Civil Defence ended their operation at the site four days after the incident. We found fragments of human bone at the factory,” he said. 

Three investigation committees were formed to look into the incident. Their findings have not been made public. The owner of the factory was arrested after the fire.

Barua said the reports’ findings should be published.

Bangladesh’s factories were once notorious for poor working conditions and frequent accidents resulting from lax safety measures. The situation has improved thanks to the government’s initiatives after the 2013 Rana Plaza collapse which killed more than 1,100 people, mostly readymade garment workers.

In late August, major global retailers agreed to extend a legal agreement with garment workers and factory owners in Bangladesh for a further two years that subjects retailers to legal actions if their factories fail to meet labour safety standards.

Citizen Investigation Committee member Prof Anu Muhammad said most reports are not made public to protect the offenders. “A culture of impunity is also responsible for this type of incident,” he said.

Ensuring justice for factory
fire victims

In the last two decades, at least 2,000 people, mostly workers, had been killed in 26 fire incidents, the International Labour Organization said.

Fire service said they recorded 383 industrial fires last year – 273 of them at apparel factories. In the last five years, there had been at least 5,834 industrial fire incidents, inflicting an estimated damage of Tk 250 crore. 

The citizen committee called the Hashem factory deaths “infrastructural murder” and made 10 recommendations.

It suggested bringing to book government organisations and employees who approved the building’s design and those involved in firefighting and implementation of the labour law. It said firefighters should be provided with modern equipment.

The committee called for ensuring compensation for the workers and footing their treatment cost. It recommended factories ensure workers’ safety and train employees so that they know what to do in case of a fire. 

Workers should get the opportunity to form a union, it said.

The committee said that the government should publish a white paper on the safety, security, and other related issues at all factories to help identify the safe and risky factories and bring down tragedies.