When all hell broke loosen Julfi kar Ali ManikExactly a year ago on April 24, resi-dents of Savar, a crowded industrial suburb 20km away from Dhaka, began their usual working day in the morning.

It was a little di erent from any oth-er summer morning because of several thousand anxious readymade garment workers. That morning, they were hes-itant about beginning their days work in the apparel factories housed in the Rana Plaza.

In just a year, tens of millions of peo-ple around the world got familiar with the name Rana Plaza because of its hor-ri c collapse on April 24, 2013.

The collapse that claimed more than 1,100 lives, is easily the deadliest ever industrial disaster in the history of human civilisation. It pushed the 1911 New York factory re that killed 146 workers, to the second place.

The day of the catastrophic collapse of Rana Plaza that housed ve garment factories who made clothes for Euro-pean and American consumers, thou-sands of workers were unwilling to get into the factory because they knew that a crack had developed in the build-ing on the previous day.

The anxiety remained unnoticed by not only the thousands of other res-idents in the area, but also was com-pletely ignored by the authorities of the building and the factories.

Over the past year, thousands of accounts of witnesses and survivors

PAGE 2 COLUMN 1

Twenty-two victims bodies handed over to wrong families n Syed Samiul Basher AnikSha qul Islam is one among the sever-al hundred relatives of the Savar Rana Plaza victims who went home on May 14 with broken hearts as the operation to rescue survivors from under the de-bris o cially ended and they did not get back the bodies of their near and dear ones.

However, Sha qul did not lose hope of nding the body of his daughter, Shyamoli Khatun, who used to work as a line operator at a factory on the third oor of Rana Plaza.

He donated samples to the nation-

al forensic DNA pro ling laboratory at the Dhaka Medical College, searched the bodies kept at morgues and kept in contact with the district administration o ce. He visits the Jurain Graveyard every week where the bodies of the unidenti ed Rana Plaza victims were buried.

I am looking for her whereabouts constantly. The DNA lab has yet to con- rm her body, he said when the Dhaka Tribune correspondent met with him a few weeks back, in front of Rana Plaza.

Like Sha qul, many of the victims relatives are now looking for the bodies of their near and dear ones, and want

to know who took those bodies away. The eight-storeyed building col-

lapsed on April 24 last year, killing around 1,140 people, mainly female garment workers of the factories housed in that building, and injuring over 2,500 others.

According to the DC o ce, a total of 1,136 people were killed during the deadly collapse and only 845 of the bodies were handed over to the fami-lies at di erent times. The remaining 291 bodies were sent to the DNA pro- ling lab for examinations and identi- cation of 206 bodies was con rmed in three phases. As many as 85 bodies

have yet to be identi ed. The Dhaka Tribune has conducted

an investigation into the matter and found that the district administration handed over at least 22 bodies from the Adhar Chandra School playground to the wrong families in between April 24 and May 14 last year.

These bodies have been buried at the Jurain Graveyard, marked as un-identi ed bodies, and later were iden-ti ed through DNA sampling.

The Savar upazila administration, however, admits that 10 bodies remain missing.

The 22 victims are Nur-e-Alam Shik-

der from Jhalakathi, Keya Akhter from Rajbari, Md Abu Taher from Bogra, Md Abu Sayeed from Rangpur, Alpa-na Dashi from Savar, Marzina Begum from Rajbari, Jinnat Ara Popy from Barisal, M Tutul Titu from Chandpur, Rasheda from Gaibandha, Shushanta Das from Habiganj, Selim Sheikh from Rajshahi, Md Baki Sheikh from Khulna, Nazimuddin from Naogaon, Sagorika Rani Das from Manikganj, Isra l from Mymensingh, Sumon from Chittagong, Chan Banu from Naogaon, Mam-taz from Tangail, Md Shahadat from Kurigram, Benu Rani Das from Savar, PAGE 2 COLUMN 3

20 pages | Price: Tk10

Boishakh 11, 1421Jamadius Sani 23, 1435Regd. No. DA 6238Vol 2, No 25 THURSDAY, APRIL 24, 2014 | www.dhakatribune.com | SECOND EDITION

April 24 will always remain etched in the memory of Bangladesh, as on this day last year the Rana Plaza tragedy claimed 1,136 lives. We publish todays issue of Dhaka Tribune in black and white to pay our respect to all the victims.

Charge sheet sees no light in one year n Mohammad Jamil Khan One year has elapsed since the Rana Plaza building at Savar collapsed but the investigators are yet to nalise charge sheets in three out of ve cases in connection with the disaster.

The Criminal Investigation Depart-ment (CID) sought time extension from court time and time again.

For the rst time the court asked the CID to submit the charge sheet of those three cases by January 18 of the year but the CID again sought extension of time.

After that the court xed the dates twice one in February and the other in March which were also deferred to April 7 upon a petition of the CID.

On April 7, the CID once again sub-mitted a further prayer and the court nally xed the date on May 21.

Contacted, Bijoy Krishno Kar, sen-ior assistant superintendent of the CID and investigation o cer of the case, said: We are investigating three cases led separately by Rajuk, police and a worker Sheuli Akter. We have already completed the investigation and now nalising the charge sheet. I hope we will able to submit it the next month.

About the delay, he said there are a huge number of witnesses and evi-dences in the cases that takes times to investigate. Primarily, we have found 39 accused as per evidence. We will

submit the charge sheet with proper evidence so that no one can evade pun-ishment.

He further said they were placing names of 900 witnesses in the charge sheet.

Ex-CID o cer Nurul Islam, howev-er, said such cases only need descrip-tion of the incident and its type. As it is not an individual murder case it should not take so much time.

There might be over 900 witnesses in the case but even after that it should not take too much time for investiga-tion, he noted.

Aminul Goni Titu, Criminal special-ist lawyer of Dhaka Judge Court, said there is no logic of taking too much time to submit charge sheet. It is a clear sign of disquali cation and ine ciency of the investigation agency.

Investigators put the total number of the accused at 21 in the murder case and 12 in the case led under the build-ing construction act. Eight accused have already secured bail from the High Court in the midst of procrastina-tion of the investigation agencies.

The number one accused in the po-lice case and Ranas father Abdul Khal-ek got bail in the month of October.

The other accused Savar Munic-ipality engineers Emtemum Hossain, Rakibul Hassan and Refayet Ullah, its ward councilor Mohammad Ali Khan,

PAGE 2 COLUMN 6

Horror stillchases heroic volunteers n Ashif Islam ShaonMany heroic volunteers, who risked their own lives to save hundreds of workers trapped under the Rana Plaza rubble, continue to be haunted by the traumatic experiences they faced dur-ing the rescue e orts.

Without any proper nancial sup-port or psychological counselling, many of the brave souls now face un-certain futures as their struggle to hold on to their mental stability has forced them to become unemployed.

Abdur Rahman Tota Miah, a 30-year-old NGO worker, was among the thou-sands of onlookers who amassed at the Rana Plaza site following the collapse on April 24 last year. Without hesitat-ing to join the rescue e orts, Tota col-lected simple tools like a ashlight, a hammer, and pliers from nearby shops, before starting to dig into the rubble.

Climbing inside the debris, he turned on his ashlight and spotted the bodies of a man and a woman. Tota froze, shocked at seeing the bodies, but soon regained his composure to pull the bodies out.

As he continued to go deeper into the rubble, seven others who also had no prior experience as rescue workers joined Tota. The team started to bring out bodies one after another, as well as drag-ging out many of the trapped survivors.

At the same time, a construction worker named Ra qul Islam was busy rescuing survivors from another part of the collapsed building site. By noon, he had managed to bring out six survivors by carrying them on his back. When he could nd no more survivors, Ra qul started bringing out the remains of those who had perished.

Like many other volunteers, Tota and Ra qul did not return home until the rescue work was nally wrapped up on May 14.

However, they brought back the traumatic experiences with them; ex-periences that continue to haunt them and bar them from having a normal life.

Tota had to spend three weeks in a hospital to get both medical attention and psychological counselling; but the thought of those he was unable to save from under the rubble still makes him angry and restless. He often nds him-self wandering in alleys at odd hours, unable to silence the voices in his head.

PAGE 2 COLUMN 4

Dead mates have not left miracle girl Reshman Ashif Islam ShaonReshma Aktar, the miracle girl, rescued from under the debris 17 days after the Rana Plaza collapse would not like to relive those terrible memories as it sends a chill of fear down her spine.

Sometimes my dead colleagues walk down my memory lane. I have recurring nightmare of those days I spent in the pitch dark of the mangled and twisted wreckage of the caved-in building. Still I cannot switch o lights in my room at night.

Reshma suddenly switched her fo-cus to her new life, dreams and expec-tations over phone.

She urged the government to stand by the side of those ill-fated peo-ple and she herself wantsto do some-thing for them but she does not know how to do that.

However, Reshma could not keep contact with her fellow unfortunate workers and their families who lost their near and dear ones due to her busy schedule in the new job in Dhaka.

Reshma is now staying with her sister Asma Akter and brother-in-law Shahidul Islams house at Rajashan in Savar. Her new abode is a one-storey tin-shed house, a few kilometres away from the Rana Plaza site.

PAGE 2 COLUMN 3

The day that will haunt forever

A young man in tears mourns the death of his sister by lighting candles in front of a mural built in front of the collapse site in Savar SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN

Life has not been the same for alln Udisa Islam and Ashif Islam Shaon

For Reshma, who survived a 17-day nightmare under the rubbles of Rana Plaza, media spotlight has fetched a comfortable life.

But badly ignored Sultana and Shanenur, who were equally trauma-tised by the deadly collapse, had to choose prostitution for a living.

The miracle girls near-impossible story of survival has put her under media spotlight and landed her quite a comfortable job at a ve-star hotel in the capital.

But her fellow survivors came back to a di erent reality. They have not ended up quite as fortunate. Their ag-onies and stories still remain unheard.

The survivors did not get much -nancial help from the government and other organisations. Yet, they can-not a ord to be without work for long.

Sohrab Ahmed Jahangir had a job at one of the factories in the Rana Plaza but now works as a shop assistant.

I came out of the wreckage minutes after the collapse, but Shahnaz, once my co-worker and later my wife, could not. She was rescued three days later, he said.

Shahnaz got treatment and recov-ered from her two broken legs, but is no more t enough to work again. She now lives in her hometown in Kishoreganj with her children.

My mother now looks after both of our children and also Shahnaz. I vis-ited them only once in the last three

months... I am staying here alone since there are few opportunities for me to earn a decent living back in the village, Jahangir said.

Although injured workers received some nancial support from the gov-

ernment, NGOs, individuals and Brit-ish retailer Primark, a major portion was spent on medical, food and other necessities.

Jahangirs family so far has received Tk80,000 in the form of assistance

from local institutions and individuals. The whole amount has already been spent on Shahnazs treatment, reloca-tion from Savar to Kishoreganj and ba-sic needs in the last one year.

Miracle survivor Reshma, mean-

while, considers her job at the ve-star hotel a gift from Allah. Since June last year, she has been the Public Area Am-bassador of Hotel Westin in the capi-tals Gulshan.

PAGE 2 COLUMN 3

A year after the Rana Plaza collapse, a relative still fumbles in the wreckage to nd any belongings of the lost ones SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN

NewsDHAKA TRIBUNE Thursday, April 24, 20142

When all hell broke loose PAGE 1 COLUMN 1have been published and broadcast in national and international print and broadcast media including the Dhaka Tribune.

Those interviews revealed many ter-rible stories before and after collapse.

Around 8am, the building authority, factory managers and supervisors per-suaded and forced the panicked work-ers to get into the building.

The scared and helpless workers could not resist the powerful managers and supervisors; they had to get in. The building was so vulnerable that some workers said they could feel it trem-bling as early as 8:30am.

Soon after, according to witnesses and survivors, huge bangs could be heard and the building suddenly start-ed jolting heavily.

Many workers thought it was an earthquake; but till then, none of them could fathom the level of devastation and the loss that the catastrophic col-lapse could result in. Even the author-ities concerned took months to get an idea of some sorts about the damages to lives and properties caused by the collapse.

WAKE UP CALL WAS IGNOREDThe tragedy could have been avert-

ed if the frantic warnings of a local engineer and journalists had not been ignored.

The problem surfaced on April 23, the day before the collapse. Busy gar-ment workers on the second oor were shocked by a loud bang that sounded like an explosion. Curious workers found that cracks had appeared on the building.

Information spread like wild re among the workers in the upper oors, the owners of the shops and the em-ployees of the Brac Bank branch inside the building. Horri ed, they all rushed outside.

A local engineer and some journal-ists warned about the possible risks of using the unsafe building. Some of them even suggested the owner of the building close it immediately.

Only a handful of private televi-sion channels broadcast the news of the cracks that had developed in the building on the day before the collapse. Those news items annoyed Sohel Rana, the owner and a politically and nan-cially powerful gangster.

Only Brac Bank took the wise de-cision to move its employees out the branch on April 23.

Sohel Rana convinced the other ten-ants that the building was safe. Ignor-ing the warnings, the factory owners listened to Rana and decided to operate their units April 24.

INTENSITY OF THE CATASTROPHEIt was hard for everyone in the

newsroom to readily fathom the inten-sity of the disaster when news started pouring in on the morning of April 24.

Even the local people had very lit-tle idea although they were the rst to rush to the site of the collapse and be-gin rescuing the trapped workers from under the rubbles of a building that was not only constructed with substandard materials but also built illegally on en-croached land.

The amateur rescuers did not have any equipment support. When they be-gan the rescue work, the oors of the building were piling up on one another like pancakes.

They had to scrawl on bare hands and unprotected knees through the little places between the oors, pillars and beams. They had to give up the idea of using any sort of equipment out of fear that further collapses might be triggered.

The volunteers did not care about their lives. Later re- ghters arrived at the scene and some soldiers from the army joined in operation.

Heavy equipment, brought from various government and private or-ganisations, was used only in the last

phase of the operation. Similarly, news coverage began with

usual assignments of a few reporter and photographers. However, very soon, the media house began to realise that the scale of the disaster was be-yond any speculation. The authorities of the factories, the garment owners association, and local residents none could say for certain how many work-ers were trapped under the debris.

Death toll kept on climbing by the hundreds 100, 150, 200, 250, 300...

Rumour spread that around 500 people were killed. But when the 17-day round-the-clock rescue operation eventually ended, the toll crossed the 1,100 mark.

Despite all the tragic developments every other minute, every time some-one was pulled out of the rubble alive, the rescuers got a reason to put in more e ort and energy into their work.

But how many workers were there? How many were alive? How long the rescue operation should be continued? Everyone was asking these questions. Television channels broadcast the rescue operation live round the clock. News of the tragedy occupied most of the spaces in the newspapers.

Almost all reporters and photogra-phers, even journalists from the news desk had to be assigned to cover the entire of the operation.

The Rana Plaza collapse remained the talk of the town for several weeks. All major foreign broadcast and print media rushed to Savar and gave exten-sive coverage to the disaster.

During the weeks-long rescue oper-ation, thousands of people remained around the site day and night. Many of them were there to look for their miss-ing family members; many were there to help the rescuers; many helped people in their searches; many others were there just to witness of the res-cue operation of the most tragic inci-dent ever.

The clinics and the playgrounds of the local schools were the places where the rescued dead bodies and the sur-vivors were kept. Everyday thousands of people gathered around all these places. Many of them o ered individu-al nancial supports to the families of the victims nobody cared how big or small the contributions were. Any size would have mattered.

The death of female garment work-er Shaheena for whom rescuers put in hours of frantic e orts, shocked every-one. A re that was accidentally ignited inside a rescue tunnel killed her.

A brave engineer, who volunteered the rescue operation, also died after being burnt severely in the same re.

However, pulling Reshma out alive on the 17th day, just before wrapping up the operation, gave a reason for all the exhausted rescuers to smile. Every-one was left pleasantly wondering how Reshma could survive for 17 days under the rubbles.

But there was plenty more stories of survival that are equally incredible how hundreds of workers survived weeks in the darkness under rubbles without water and food.

One female survivor told this report-er that she had to drink urine and blood of a fellow dead worker for surviving.

Many lost their limbs and had dam-aged organs. Many kids lost their par-ents in the tragedy. There are still many more who have never come back to normal life. Hundreds have remained jobless and scores of bodies are still un-identi ed.

Many victims and the families of the dead ones have not got any compensa-tion.

For decades to come, many more stories will continue to be unfolded surrounding the gruesome disaster.

The consequences of the tragedy will be felt at the social, national and personal levels for many more years ahead. l

Twenty-two victims bodies PAGE 1 COLUMN 5Dhaka, Md Jasim Uddin from Gaiband-ha and Shilpi Akter from Thakurgaon.

The relatives of these victims iden-ti ed the bodies, most of which were decomposed, by checking the colour of their dresses or birth marks.

O cials related to the handover process said it had been too tough for them to identify all the bodies.

The Dhaka Tribune has talked to all these families and none of them are now unwilling to face any hassle since the bodies have already been buried at the family graveyards in di erent districts and they would be required to repay the money given to them from the Prime Ministers Relief Fund and the DC o ce.

Jaru Sheikh, husband of the de-ceased Marzina Begum, said he had received the body from Adhar Chandra School 13 days after the collapse.

I received the body after cross checking the colour of the dress she put on that day. However, the DNA pro l-ing lab has informed me that the body of my wife, which matched the sample given by my son Sajal, was buried at the Jurain Graveyard.

I am confused, but nothing can be done now. I do not want any hassle now, he told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.

I have received my sons dead body from the school ground. It was sepa-rated from the waist; we did not get his head. However, the DNA lab is now claiming that the original body is at Ju-rain Graveyard, but we are not interest-ed any more, said Md Ahad Box, father of the deceased Md Abu Taher.

Another worker Shilpi Akters fa-ther, Md Foizul Haque, said the author-ities had handed over his daughters body after nding a mobile phone with the dead body.

The o cials called me and deliv-ered the decomposed body to me. We have already buried her in Thakurgaon. But the DNA lab has recently informed us that the original body is now at the Jurain Graveyard.

All these 22 families have received Tk1 lakh each from the Prime Minis-ters Relief Fund and Tk20,000 from the district administration. Now they are tensed about whether they have to repay the money and return the bodies.

It is alleged that some unscrupulous groups were active in taking away the bod-ies of the dead workers from the school ground as Tk20,000, in cash, was involved with the issue. Police detained some of these frauds from the site, between April 24 and May 16, according to locals.

When the issue was brought before Savar Upazila Nirbahi O cer Kamrul Hasan Molla, now in-charge of the de-bris site, said they had found that 10 bodies were handed over to the wrong families during the chaotic situation just after the building collapsed.

In many occasions, we have men-tioned that there were 301 unidenti ed bodies. But we sent 291 bodies to the DNA laboratory for tests as the other 10 were handed over to the wrong fami-lies, he said, admitting the matter.

Referring to the handover process, he said: We are now trying to collect the DNA samples of these bodies. It is a continuous process.

We delivered the bodies after a pri-mary veri cation of valid documents, a check of voter ID cards or through mak-ing phone calls. When we called the fam-ily members, they said they had already taken away the bodies of their relatives and that those were already buried.

On the issue of mismatch, he said if the authorities received any concrete information on the mismatch in de-livering the bodies, we will consider the issue seriously. But we have yet to receive any concrete information. The solution may lie in DNA testing of the bodies buried by the relatives. l

Charge sheet sees no light in one year PAGE 1 COLUMN 5Abul Hasan, Anil Dash and Shah Alam, who gave Sohel Rana, the building owner, shelter in Faridpur and Jessore also secured bail.

Sources said local engineer Abdur Razzak who, after visiting the building, said the building could still be used submitted bail prayer eight times to the lower court. The court rejected his bail pleas all the time. Now, his is trying to secure bail from the High Court.

Rajuks authorised o cer Helal Uddin led a case on April 25 for breaching the building construction act and building code while the murder case was led the same day with Savar police station by Sub-Inspector Wali Ashraf.

Another murder case was led with the Dhaka Judge court by garment worker Jahangir Alams wife Sheuli Akter.

The two other cases were led with Dhamrai police station under arms act by inspector of the DB police Shahin Shah Parvez. The CID started investigating the three cases soon after the incident.

A source close to the investigation agency said they were going to accuse 17 people of ve garment factories that were housed in Rana Plaza.

The investigators are framing charges against Sohel Rana, his father Abdul Khaleq and mother Morjina Begum for building the tower illegally without approving the design by proper authorities.

The charge sheet will also have names of three friends of Rana for helping him to escape. Of the charge-sheeted accused, 21 are behind bard while 19 are still absconding.

Mokhlesur Rahman, additional inspector general and chief of the CID, told the Dhaka Tribune that massive hunt down would be launched shortly to arrest the absconders after submission of the charge sheet.

The Rana Plaza collapse on 24 April of the last year claimed at least 1,136 lives mostly workers belonging to ve garment factories housed in the building and left around 2,500 others injured. l

Horror still chases PAGE 1 COLUMN 6These voices often drag him back to the Rana Plaza, where Tota says the cries of the trapped workers are growing louder.

I lose my temper now and then. I still cannot have a night of sound sleep, said Tota, who is now unemployed.

He lost his NGO job as he struggled with mental instability. He was also red from another job at a computer shop whose owner blamed him for not being able to behave properly.

Tota said he keeps having recurring nightmares of four girls trapped under a beam, seeking help from him. Two of them die and the other two girls point a gun at his head in the nightmare because he failed to rescue them, Tota added.

When asked about the other mem-bers of their eight-member volunteer team, Tota said Khoaj Ali has devel-oped sores on his body, Forkan Ali sometimes sleeps on the streets, one of Shahjahans legs is paralysed, while Yusufs left hand has been damaged.

Meanwhile, Ra qul had to switch

jobs from being a construction worker to becoming a rickshaw-puller, as he was unable to work during the whole month. On many days, he just sits idle, staring at walls or at streets.

Sometimes, deep in the night, Ra qul starts shouting, asking for body bags; during the day he also struggles with his sanity as he pretends to sell bus tickets made out of torn posters.

Tota said no one had given them any nancial support, just a number of certif-icates. Although some organisations of-fered treatment, many of the a ected did not continue the follow-up medical care.

The Fire Service and Civil Defence and SAFE Bangladesh gave us three days training certi cates. That is all we have got, he claimed. The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) has reportedly pre-pared a list of 20 rescuers who are in need of psychological counselling as well as -nancial support. However, no individual or organisation has stepped up yet to save those heroes of Savar. l

Dead mates have not left miracle girl Reshma PAGE 1 COLUMN 6She is now working in the ve-star ho-tel The Westin in Dhakaas Public Area Ambassador.The hotel authorities gave her one-month leave recently follow-ing the death of her uncle.

Back in April last year after four days of rescue operations with light machinery in which many people were brought out alive, it was assumed that there were no more survivors and heavy machinery were brought in.

On May 10, Reshma was found alive on the second oor of the building.

Before Reshma only two persons Naqsha Bibi in Pakistan and Evans Monsignac in Haiti survived 63 days and 27 days respectively under debris.

Reshma was taken to the Combined Military Hospital after her rescue and was treated there for about a month. The Westin gave her a job as she did not want to go back toher old profession.

Asked about her new job, Reshma said its better than before. Its very

di erent from a garment factory.The garment factory used to pay

me Tk8000 and now I am drawing over Tk35000. In the factory I worked from morning till late night and now I work from 7am to 4pm.

My new authorities trained me for the rst eight months. I used to go to every department and work there for a few days. I have learned computer op-erating and currently I am at the out t department. We make dresses, alter those or take care of clothes, Reshma said.

Reshma now speaks a little English. I greet foreigners; some foreign

guests can recognise me.they want to talk to me, she said.Asked if she wants to go back to her old profession again Reshma said an emphatic never.

At one point of the conversation as she came back to the right state of her mind this correspondent returned to the horrifying April 24 morning when

all hell broke loose.I stepped out at 7:30 that morning

as I used to do every day ---- why dont you understand I dont want to recall those days. You should try to under-stand that I feel really very bad ------, she said.

As she was asked why people doubt-ed about her rescue after 17 days she said: Many people say many things. Many people doubted. I pretend not to hear them. I feel really bad. If you were there, you would know, she said.

Asked why her landlord had told a number of news media that he saw her two days after the collapse.

I also heard that he said I was res-cued two days after the collapse and then sent back in again. Why would someone who was pulled out of that place ever go back in? she retorted.

After that she regained her compo-sure: The day I was rescued, I heard footsteps nearby. Then I screamed for help and at the same time started hit-

ting a pipe so that people walking near-by could hear it.

The rescue workers then came to my rescue. They pulled me out.My clothes were all torn. Before I came out I put on whatever I could nd nearby as there was a garment shop on that oor, she said as she was narrating her ordeal.

Reshma has recently visited her village home Ghoraghat Oishibari in Dinajpur after her uncle died on April 13. She has two sisters all are married andtwo brothers and parents.

Reshmas mother has built two houses with the money she received from di erent organisations. Construc-tion work of another is going on.

Asked if the army o cers kept con-tact with her, she said: Some o cers do so. They suggested me how to behave, talk, and work in a ve-star hotel. They encourage me to do better, she said.

Reshma said she is grateful to the army, the rescuers and the government for her present position. l

Life has not been the same for all PAGE 1 COLUMN 5Available data suggests Reshma ranks third on the list of the longest survi-vors beneath rubble. Pakistani national Naqsha Bibi survived for 63 days fol-lowing the 2005 Pakistan quake, while rescuers pulled Evans Monsignac out of rubble after 27 days during the 2010 Haiti earthquake.

I do not want to go back to that life again. Those factory days were tiring and hard, she said.

Sultana, Shahenur, SalehaApril 24, 2013 was Sultanas (not her real name) day o . She and her hus-band Selim worked for separate facto-ries in Rana Plaza.

Before her husband Selim bade her goodbye on that fateful summer morn-ing, they made plans to go to a movie in the evening after he came back from work.

But little did Sultana know that she was never going to meet her hus-band again and her life was to become a movie itself. She did not lose a limb in the collapse that left more than a thousand people dead. But she had to go through some dreadful experienc-es which drove the garment worker to pick prostitution as a profession.

The deadly factory building collapse

a ected her in two ways. First, the fac-tory she worked for was closed. Sec-ond, she could not claim any compen-sation for her husbands death.

Sultana and Selim got married and moved in together nearly a year before the collapse. But their families did not know that. Neither was there any doc-ument to prove that they were married because they took the nuptial vows be-fore a local religious scholar, not before kazi, who could have put their mar-riage in papers.

If she could have proved their rela-tionship, she would have been entitled to a compensation of at least Tk1 lakh from the prime ministers fund.

Yes I was lucky to be alive. A few days after the building collapsed, I joined another factory in the locality. But the trauma was too much to with-stand. I could not look at the walls and the ceiling of my new workplace. They looked like they would come down on me any moment, Sultana told the Dha-ka Tribune.

I knew from then on that it would be impossible for me to work inside a factory again. Then some of my [for-mer] colleagues [from the Rana Plaza factory] told me about selling my body. Some of them even went to a brothel in Daulatdia. But, I was afraid of broth-

els, she said.She however did not disclose the

location of her work to the Dhaka Tri-bune reporter out of fear of getting ar-rested.

Sixteen-year-old Shahenur (not her real name) from Jamalpur was not as lucky as Sultana. She was inside the building when it collapsed and man-aged to escape with minor injuries.

After losing work, she said she and her family of two dependents fought long and hard with poverty. Finally, she decided to work part time by seat-ing with her clients two days a week alongside her regular factory job.

We [former Rana Plaza workers who took up prostitution] are not few in number. But nobody knows about us as yet because we do not work in the open. Some of us have taken up this profession just because they cannot work in a factory anymore, Shahenur told the Dhaka Tribune.

Unlike Sultana and Shahenur, Sale-ha from Chapainawabganj did not have much choice.

After the building came down, her parents got her married to a man, who claimed he worked in India. After the wedding, the couple went to India and Salehas parents were happy.

But after about six months, Salehas

parents sensed something was wrong because they had not heard from their daughter or their son-in-law since they went to India. They fear that their daughter has been tra cked by her husband and a gang.

Not only the victims of the Rana Plaza disaster, but also many victims of other recent industrial disasters such as the Tazreen inferno have also been falling prey to human tra ckers.

Available data shows that at least 10,000 workers have lost their jobs as a result of these industrial catastrophes.

Salma Ali, president of Bangladesh National Women Lawyers Association (BNWLA), said: We do not know how many women have taken up this pro-fession because some of them choose willingly. When these women become unemployed, they fall prey to the pimps.

Senior Secretary of Home Ministry CQK Mustaq Ahmed told the Dhaka Tribune that the number of such wom-en was not high but the ministry had been alert about the situation.

About tra cking, he said: We have to take this seriously. We have to stop all kinds of tra cking. He have asked our border guards to remain alert. Although it is also true that we have failed on occasions. l

HRW: Rana Plaza victims urgently need assistancen Tribune Report International companies that sourced garments from ve factories operating in the Rana Plaza were not contributing enough to the fund set up to support survivors and the families of those who died, Human Rights Watch has said.

Survivors of the collapse one year ago were still su ering from injuries and loss of income, the New York-based watchdog said in a statement.

One year after Rana Plaza col-lapsed, far too many victims and their families are at serious risk of destitu-tion, said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at HRW.

International garment brands should be helping the injured and the

dependents of dead workers who man-ufactured their clothes, he added.

The target for the fund, which is chaired by the International Labour Organisation, is US$40m, but only $15 m has been raised so far, according to HRW. The Bangladeshi authorities announced on Tuesday that victims would receive their rst payments of $645 each from the fund.

Of the $15m raised, Primark alone has donated $8m, according to the funds website. Some companies that were not doing business with factories, have also contributed. In contrast, 15 brands, whose clothing and labels were found in the rubble by journalists and labour ac-tivists, have not paid, HRW said.

The organisation said it had written

to the companies that had not paid into the fund. It also wrote to 14 companies that are listed as donors to the fund, ask-ing them if they planned to take any fur-ther step to improve the plight of injured workers or families of the deceased.

Companies should recognise this fund is the most appropriate mecha-nism for ensuring that the right help goes to the right people, since it has been set up by all the relevant stake-holders, Robertson said. Internation-al garment brands now need to step up their support to make this fund work to help the thousands of people a ected by this disaster.

These brands should help mitigate the damage by assisting with the full restitution, he added. l

US: Bangladesh made progress with labour rightsn Sheikh Shahariar ZamanWashington has acknowledged that Ban-gladesh made progress with important labour rights issues last year, but added that much work was still to be done.

The observation was made in a joint statement by the US Department of State, the O ce of the US Trade Repre-sentative, the USAID, and the Depart-ment of Labour.

The statement read that Bangladesh made progress in allowing over 140 unions to register, permitting re-registra-tion of a leading labour rights NGO, agree-ing to an ambitious plan for safety inspec-tions and factory-level monitoring and remediation across the garment sector in collaboration with the ILO, beginning the hiring of new labour inspectors, and con-ducting preliminary safety inspections.

But there is much more work still to be done. There continue to be concerns about basic worker rights protections under both Bangladeshs labour law and its special Export Processing Zone law.

The governments hiring of inspectors

was lagging, and the results of inspec-tions needed to be made publicly avail-able on an easily accessible database.

Bangladesh must also do more to ensure protection when workers face intimidation and reprisals for trying to organise, the statement read, adding: Addressing these issues would help workers secure safer working conditions and better wages and enable Bangladesh to realise its full economic potential.

Washington also claimed that all stakeholders including the government, employers, and buyers of Bangladeshi products have to bear a responsibility for ensuring safe working conditions.

To that end, we are working with all stakeholders to implement the Action Plan we laid out after President [Barack] Obama suspended Bangladeshs ben-e ts under the Generalised System of Preferences program last June. l

3NewsDHAKA TRIBUNE Thursday, April 24, 2014Rana Plaza victims are still waiting for compensationn Ibrahim Hossain OviThe family members of Rana Plaza victims especially those who lost their lives in the building collapse are still ghting for compensation from the government as well as the authorities concerned.

It is better to die. How I can main-tain my family with a scanty amount of money I have received from the gov-ernment and buyers as compensation for the death of my only son, said Md Akmal Gazi, father of Rabiul Islam who was killed in the Rana Plaza building collapse last year.

Since my son had obtained bache-lors degree, I hoped that he would take the helm of my family. Even though he did it, the building collapse had shattered my dream, Akmal said in an emotion-choked voice.

He has so far received Tk1 lakh from the Prime Ministers Fund and Tk30,000 from buyers as compensa-tion for the loss of the life of his be-loved son.

Pakhi Begum, who worked as a sew-ing operator at Ether Tex, had lost her two legs in the worst factory disaster on April 24 last year.

She got Tk15 lakh as compensation from the Prime Ministers Fund and Tk45,000 from buyers. Also, she was getting Tk8,000 every month from Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association.

Pakhi is now living in her village home and maintaining her family with nancial assistance she received from PMs Fund and other sources.

Rana Plaza, an eight-storey building that housed ve garment factories, col-lapsed at Savar on the outskirts of Dha-

ka city on April 24 last year, killing 1,135 workers and injuring 2,500.

Like Akmal, most of the people who lost their earning members are su ering severe nancial hardship as they have got less compensation from the govern-ment and other authorities concerned.

According to the latest data of BG-MEA, the Prime Minister has so far distributed over Tk22.13 crore to 909 victims as nancial assistance.

Several organisations, including banks and insurance companies, as well as individuals and garment own-ers have so far donated over Tk127 crore to the PMs Fund.

BGMEA, however, collected Tk14 crore from its members and spent Tk12 crore for victims treatment and wages while it donated TK2 crore to the PMs Fund for compensation.

Altab Hossain, father of Al-Amin who worked at Rana Plaza, told the Dhaka Tribune that he got only Tk1 lakh from the prime minister and Tk20,000 for funeral.

Only Tk1.20 lakh as compensation can make up for the loss of my sons life, he said, venting his anger on the government and buyers as well as the factory owners.

A $40 million Trust Fund had been formed by IndustriAll, UNI Global Union and Clean Clothes Campaign in cooperation with the International La-bour Organisation to compensate the victims of the worst factory disaster.

Currently, the Trust Fund has $17m of which $9m will be distributed to 581 victims, who worked for New Wave Bottom, by the British retailer Primark. The rest would be used to compensate other workers as per Article 121 of ILO convention.

Its very unfortunate that the glob-al retailers are making hefty sourcing from Bangladesh, but they are not paying compensation to the victims of Rana Plaza, said Sirajul Islam Rony, president of Bangladesh National Gar-ment Workers-Employees League.

He added: We are still hopeful that the buyers would come up with enough compensation.

Though the buyers were supposed to provide compensation to the vic-tims family members and injured workers, they are yet to show good re-sponse, said a factory owner preferring anonymity.

The buyers only donated $8m to Trust Fund while many buyers like Walmart are not providing any nan-cial support to the fund, he said.

Meanwhile, garment workers and trade union leaders have claimed that due to lack of coordination, the amount of proper compensation has not been set and compensation not paid to the victims in proper way.

From now, compensation should be coordinated and integrated as there is a trust fund where the buyers, gov-ernment, trade unions and other stake-holders are involved, said Roy Ramesh Chandra, secretary general of Industri-All Bangladesh Council.

Calling on the government to come up with a permanent solution to the compensation issue, he said the coun-try has witnessed several industrial incidents, but no mechanism has been developed yet.

I am hopeful of getting 40 million funds for compensation as the global brands are facing mounting pressure from consumers and rights groups, he added. l

No comprehensive list of Rana Plaza victims yet n Tazlina Zamila KhanEven though one year has already elapsed, there is no fully compre-hensive list of the Rana Plaza victims while many of them are awaiting com-pensation.

Still there is an utter confusion over the total number of missing workers, buried after identi cation, rescued and injured workers because of lack of a complete report by the government.

According to the Labour Ministry, 180 people were still unaccounted for. But the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) report said it was 88 while Ban-gladesh Institute of Labour Studies (BILS) put the gure at 379 and Rana Plaza Coordination Cell at 146.

The ministry said 127 people were buried unidenti ed, while the CPD said it was 27, ActionAid 137 and Rana Plaza Coordination Cell 136.

The CPD revealed the ndings in its report titled One Year after the Rana

Plaza Tragedy: Where Do We Stand? The Victims, the Sector and the Value Chain. The report was released at a programme held at Brac Centre Inn yesterday.

Lawmaker Shirin Akter said: A list should be posted immediately on the website. She added: If there was a trade union in the factory, it was not pos-sible to force the workers to work there.

Shireen Haq, founder member of Naripokkho, said: We have noticed lack of coordination in rescuing the vic-tims and publishing a comprehensive report. Are we ready enough to handle another disaster like Rana Plaza?

CPDs report said the BGMEA pro-vided help to 3,109 workers families and Primark to 3,639 while 909 re-ceived one-time support (Tk1-5 lakh) and 41 got long-term support (Tk10-15 lakh) from the government.

Dr KZ Moazzem, additional re-search director of the CPD said: The governments commitment to provide long-term treatment to the victims re-

mained unful lled.Also, there are around 700 children

of victims while only a few received long-term support.

The report said around 676 workers were registered with Enam Medical College and Hospital while 418 with the CRP.

More than 1000 workers have not yet been able to join any work due to var-ious kinds of physical di culties while only 777 were re-employed in RMG.

Mikail Shiper, secretary of the min-istry said: Around 962 people got compensation from the PMs Fund. The government gave Tk200,000 to rescue workers, Tk7,500,000 to the injured undergoing treatment in hospi-tals. We got 291 unidenti ed bodies of which 206 were sent to DNA testing lab. Tk235,572,000 was distributed from the fund till yesterday.

Union leaders have asked brands to pay $40m by April 24 to the ILO- man-aged Rana Plaza Donor Trust Fund

while it requires about $73m. Around 248 people said they got compensation from the fund, he added.

After the tragedy, although Accord was established but it was said Accord was not working in favour of workers.

Nazma Akter, president of Awaz Foundation said: Factories were closed, but workers are not getting wages. Accord is not working in favour of workers interest.

CPD suggested paying workers wages after closure of the factories, speeding up legal actions against al-leged, paying compensation quickly and publishing a complete list of vic-tims and others.

Rehman Sobhan, chairman of the CPD said: Its important to form a standing national commission headed by civil society and government bodies to address the workers issues. There should have a helpline so that victims seek help and get solution. Otherwise, victims will become victims. l

Government, BGMEA: Vested interests trying to destroy countrys RMG sectorn Emran Hossain ShaikhThe government and the BGMEA alleged that a group of conspirators were trying to destroy the countrys garment industry capitalising on the Rana Plaza collapse.

Those who are carrying out such conspiracy againstthe export-oriented industry are doing it only for their per-sonal interests. Do they think who will lose from this? A lot of garment indus-tries will be closed and millions of work-ers will lose their jobs, prime ministers Special Assistant for media Mahbubul Haque Shakil said at a brie ng yesterday.

BGMEA President Atiqul Islam al-leged that some NGOs and labour bodies planned to demonstrate today in di er-ent parts of the world, especially in de-veloped countries, to discourage foreign-ers from using Bangladeshi apparels.

Some national and internation-al NGOs and labour organisations are

propagating to destroy our garment industry, the leader of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association said.

Both Shakil and Atiqul sought coop-eration of the media in helping out the garment sector. They also gave assur-ance that the treatment of the injured Rana Plaza workers would continue.

Issuinga note of warning against the vested interests, Shakil said if anyone was found guilty of spreading propa-gandas against the countrys garment sector, they would be brought to book.

The garment industry is our national asset and it is our duty to save it, he said.

Referring to the government e orts, rescue operation and nancial assistance to the victims along with their treatment, he said: Necessary measures will be tak-en to avoid such incidents in future.

Asked about alleged mismanagement of the PMs relief and welfare fund, he

said the fund had been maintained with highest transparency and accountability.

Shakil said 2,438 people had been rescued alive from the Rana Plaza debris and 1,117dead bodies had been recov-ered. Eighteen more people later died in di erent hospitals while undergoing treatment. The government handed over 844 dead bodies to their families and buried 291 dead bodies at Jurain grave-yard after collecting their DNA samples.

The PMO o cial said Savar police had led a case against the Rana Plaza owner and arrested the accused. Be-sides, 11 cases have been led under the labour law. Investigation into these cases are at the nal stage and the chargesheets will be submitted soon.

The Prime Ministers O ce organ-ised the brie ng to inform the media about the steps taken by the govern-ment and other agencies after the Rana Plaza tragedy. l

Ideal procedure was not maintained in identifying Rana Plaza victimsn Moniruzzaman UzzalFaced with an industrial disaster of an unprecedented scale, it was not possi-ble to follow the ideal procedure of us-ing DNA tests to identify the Rana Plaza victims, the chief of the national DNA lab has told the Dhaka Tribune.

Although more than 100 victims remain unidenti ed after a year, the identi cations could still be made if the government took initiative to col-lect DNA samples from relatives of all the victims, he added.

Professor Dr Sharif Akteruzzaman, head of the National DNA Pro ling Laboratory at the Dhaka Medical Col-lege (DMC), said they had received 322 DNA samples from unidenti ed bodies as well as collecting 556 samples from families of the victims. So far, 206 of the bodies have been identi ed in three phases, he added.

According to o cial government gures, a total of 1,134 bodies were recovered from under the collapsed building.

The DNA test was not a complete procedure but a partial one, Akteruz-zaman admitted, adding that samples from only one-fourth of the victims had been sent to the DNA lab, while 812 bodies had been handed over to relatives without collecting any DNA sample.

As such a large-scale incident was unprecedented; the bodies were im-properly handed over to those claiming to be family members, after identi ca-tion was made only through clothes, or-naments, or objects found in the pocket.

Although the national DNA lab had

experience in carrying out DNA tests with a low-capacity machine, it need-ed the US Federal Bureau of Investi-gations Combined DNA Index System (Codis) to carry out such a large-scale test, the lab chief said.

The lab carried out 1,000 tests a year on an average, but was forced to con-duct a similar number of tests within only a ve-month period after the Rana Plaza collapse, he added.

It was still possible to identify the rest of bodies, if people who were yet to locate their relatives would submit DNA samples, Dr Akteruzzaman said, adding that the government could ad-vertise in the mass media in this regard.

The government could also take an initiative to exhume the victims and collect DNA samples, in order to cross-check and con rm their identities based on other DNA samples collected from the relatives, he added.

Dr Akteruzzaman also slammed the BGMEA, claiming that the apex body of apparel makers did not contribute anything to the DNA testing e orts, and added that more family members of victims would have come forward to provide samples if the BGMEA had been more serious on the issue.

To ensure better services for any future disaster, the DNA lab chief said no dead body should be handed over to relatives without preserving DNA sam-ples. A temporary morgue should be set up beside the disaster site, Dr Akter-uzzaman said, adding that all garment workers along with public and private organisation workers who faced risks of a disaster should be brought under a DNA database. l

My photography is my protest n Udisa IslamA nal embrace, the photograph that won a World Press Photo award and was selected as one of Time magazines top 10 photos of 2013, is one of the most recognised pictures that represent the haunting tragedy of the disaster.

Taslima Akhter, the photographer who snapped the image, recalled how she felt when taking the picture, telling the Dhaka Tribune: Whenever I look back at this photo, I feel uncomfort-able, and that is what I want to be.

Describing the harrowing hours of the fateful day, she said: April 24 [of 2013] was the shortest day of my life, as I can-not recall how the day passed. At mid-night, all of us were in a state that cannot be explained. I saw the startled eyes of the relatives. Some were crying. Some were looking for their family members.

When asked about how she had found the embracing workers inside the rubble, Taslima said: Around 2am on April 25, some of my friends who are activists came and told me that there were many dead bodies near the back of the collapsed building. I went with them and found many scattered bodies, some of them in horrible con-ditions, which continue to haunt me. The place was completely dark, so we turned on our ashlights and found the couple at the back of the building, em-bracing each other in the rubble.

I just took a few snaps and noticed a drop of blood running from the mans eye like a tear. I stopped taking snaps and just left the place without saying anything. You cannot really feel the situation; 1,136 lives is not a matter of joke. This drop of blood that ran like a tear describes the situation of our workers who do not know when they might have to die for the factory own-ers criminal negligence. My photogra-phy is my protest, Taslima said.

Believe me; I was not ready to take a

photo at the time, because for the whole day we had only seen hundreds of bod-ies of the workers with whom I had been working since 2008. However, after taking the photo, I kept thinking about them for the whole night. In that place, I saw bodies in the most horrible con-ditions inside the concrete. Who they were, I do not know, she added.

Describing her feelings on winning an award for such a tragic situation, the acclaimed photographer said she hopes that her photo will haunt the audience and force them to think whether the dreams of the victims matters to them.

With my photo I just want to pro-voke your thoughts, said Taslima, who had also won the best photography award in the fth Dali International Pho-tography Exhibition in China in 2013.

Time magazine, which gave the pho-to its title: a nal embrace, also termed the image as the single most haunting photo of the Rana Plaza disaster. Al-though the magazine had not consulted the person behind the lens for the title, Taslima said she agreed with Times de-cision, as the couple may have been try-ing to embrace just before their deaths.

Whenever we face any type of acci-dent, we feel like holding onto anything that comes in front of us, she said.

Although she has tried for a long time, Taslima has not been able to learn the names of the two victims in her photo, nor was she able nd out whether the couple had been lovers.

Many of the survivors told the pho-tographer that when they were trapped inside the rubbles, they pulled other peoples hair or bit them in order to ease their own pain. Some tried to kill themselves by slamming their own heads in the rubble as they could not tolerate the su ering.

She said the photograph of the em-brace was a witness to this su ering, adding that when the photo receives any award, she feels like she had shared the pain with a worldwide audience.

Taslima, whose website also fea-tures photos from four other garment factory res that killed hundreds more, said: My photographs are witnesses to the cruel history of workers being killed. The photographs always tell me that the deaths of workers are only a number to a state. l

CPD Chairman Rehman Sobhan speaks at a programme at the Brac Centre Inn yesterday, left, commemorating the rst anniversary of the Rana Plaza disaster. Right, Sonabanu, a survivor of the tragedy, cannot hold her tears at the event while speaking of her husband she lost in the incident RAJIB DHAR

Teesta water ow starts lessening againJRC member says diplomatic pressure increased the ow previously

n Abu Bakar SiddiqueThe water ow of the Teesta River marked a fall again yesterday after a dramatic increase on Tuesday.

According to Bangladesh Water Development Board, the river ow was recorded at 1242 cubic feet per second (Cusec) at Dalia point near Teesta Barrage located in Lalmonirhat district yesterday while it surprisingly stood at 3006 Cusec on the previous day.

On a query about the unprecedented decrease just after one day, Mir Sajjad Hossain, a member of Joint River Com-mission (JRC), could not give any satis-factory answer.

However, he said earlier water ow increased due to releasing more water by Indian government on the face of the continuous diplomatic pressure and swelling ice melting in the Himalayans.

Wishing anonymity, a former mem-ber of JRC told the Dhaka Tribune that such sort of ups and downs of water

ow has been happening as per Indias whim.

This is not the proper time of ice melting, which can create such kind of huge ow like Tuesday, he added.

The water ow of the Teesta River dropped a record low which was only 409 cusec on March 9 this year as India allegedly withdrew water unilaterally by Gajoldoba barrage to move water to its expanded projects.

The regular water ow during the month of April is around 3,000 Cusec

after introducing the Gajoldoba bar-rage located upstream of the river in India while the historical natural ow of the river during this period was around 6,000 Cusec, said Water Devel-opment Board sources.

The remarkable water ow (around 500 Cusec) decrease this year has turned the farmers of the Northern districts vulnerable, who are vastly dependent on Teesta Irrigation Project which required at least 2,000 Cusec of water. l

News4 DHAKA TRIBUNE Thursday, April 24, 2014Hanif: BNP has staged draman Tribune ReportAwami League Joint Secretary Mah-bubul Alam Hanif alleged that the BNP had staged a drama in the name of the long march programme to con the na-tion.

This long march is nothing but an act of deceit with the country people. No problem has ever been solved by long marches, he said at a discussion at the National Press Club in the capital.

He said the Teesta water crisis was a state problem, and launching a long march programme was not going to help solving it.

It should be resolved through bilat-eral talks between the two neighbours. And BNP leaders also know that, he said.

BNP has been shedding crocodiles tears for the proportionate sharing of Teestas water. But its leader (Begum Khaleda Zia) forgot to talk about the is-sue when she was in power.

Our new government was formed through the 10th National Elections. Polls are being held now in India through which a new government will assume power there. The Teesta water sharing crisis will be resolved through talks with the new government in In-dia, Hanif said.

The Swadhinata Shikkhak Parishad, a teachers organisation, organised the discussion on the Historic Mujibnagar Day and Relevant Thoughts at the VIP Lounge of the National Press Club. Prof Dr Abdul Mannan Chowdhury, con-vener of the organisation, chaired the discussion. l

BNP: No water, no relationn Mohammad Al-Masum Molla from Teesta Barrage

The BNP yesterday said the relation be-tween Bangladesh and India would de-pend on proper sharing of water from the Teesta River.

The party also said the incumbent government would never be able to sign any treaty on water sharing of the Teesta.

Our environmental and ecological balance is at risk. Especially, our farm-er and shermen have become victims of the adverse impact of the barrage. We are urging the smaller countries to be united to protect the countries from the natural disasters for which the big countries are responsible, Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, acting secre-tary general of the party, said.

Fakhrul said people of the country hoped a Teesta Treaty deal during the visit of Manmohan Singh but people were frustrated.

We are a small country and we are not so much powerful economically. Our movement is not against India rather we want to ensure proper shar-ing of water.

Addressing a rally at Dalia point of the Teesta Barrage in Lalmonirhat in the concluding programme of the two-day long march towards Teesta Barrage, Fakhrul also made the call to India to ensure 10,000 cusecs of water to Bangladesh from the Teesta River to maintain good relation between the two countries.

The long march led by Fakhrul was organised by the party to mount pres-sure on the government for the fair

share of Teesta water.The spokesperson of the party said

the Awami League government could not sign any treaty as there is no public support to the government.

They (AL) do not have the cour-age to make unhappy those who have helped them to assume the o ce. So an organised movement is needed to oust the government, he said.

Though the rst day of the long march programme witnessed poor par-ticipation the second day witnessed a bit better participation. Some thou-sands party leaders and activists in-cluding people of the adjacent areas thronged the meeting venue.

On the rst day of the programme the presence of central leaders was negligible but on the second day many central leaders were present including the central Jamaat and alliance leaders.

Farmer Asir Uddin delivered a speech at the rally narrating his su er-ings due to water scarcity and a Bha-waia song was sung on Teesta river.

Prior to starting for the Teesta bar-rage around 10am, the party men held a brief rally on the premises of Rangpur Town Hall.

Addressing the programme, BNP standing committee member Nazrul Islam Khan said: If water from Tees-ta ows into Bangladesh we will be on good terms with India but if there is no water there is no scope to maintain good relation with India.

Another standing committee mem-ber Mahbubur Rahman said: We do not want to beg water. We do not want gift. We want proper sharing of water. It is our right. l

Two freedom ghters testify for Mir Kashem n Udisa IslamTwo defence witnesses in the case against alleged al-Badr commander of Chittagong, Mir Kashem Ali, gave their depositions yesterday, claiming to be freedom ghters.

But when the prosecution cross ex-amined them, they could not tell the tribunal anything about the formation of the Peace Committee, members of which collaborated with the Pakistani occupation forces. They also refused to talk about Jamaat-e-Islami, men-tioning that they had no idea about the involvement of the party in the war crimes.

After the cross-examination of the third defence witness Abu Taher Khan, 63, the International Crimes Tribunal 2 closed the witness depositions from both sides and set April 27 for the clos-ing arguments by the prosecution.

On Tuesday, a sister of the accused

testi ed at the tribunal as the rst de-fence witness.

Taher, claiming to be a freedom ghter, said he had no knowledge whether former Jamaat chief Ghu-lam Azam had been involved with the Peace Committee during the war or not. He also could not name any leader of the Peace Committee in Chittagong.

The witness said he had heard about torture cells in the port city but denied knowing anything about Goods Hill, Chittagong Circuit House, Chittagong Stadium, Dost Mohammad Building and Daleem Hotel which had been used as torture cells by the local collaborators.

He said: I came here in response to Barrister Akrams [son of the accused] request. He said as I am a freedom ghter, I can save his father by telling the truth about Daleem Hotel.

The defence also exhibited four documents of this witness including a

document in connection with a case re-lating to Daleem Hotel and three books.

Taher claimed that he had been an activist of the Railway Workers League in 1971. When asked by the prosecution whether the organisa-tion was formed with supporters from all parties Awami League, Muslim League and Jamaat, he answered in the negative.

The defence rst brought forward Mohammad Ali, 60, who also claimed to be a freedom ghter. Ali admitted that he had never taken part in any sig-ni cant operations during the war.

He also could not name any mar-tyred freedom ghters who had been tortured or killed at Daleem Hotel, al-leged to be run by Mir Kashem, now the Jamaat executive council member and also its treasurer.

Interestingly, both the witnesses said they had never seen Mir Kashem before 1983 when they met on a matter

of advertisement. They also claimed that they had never heard about Mir Kashem in relation with the Daleem Hotel but said there was a man named Motiur Rahman alias Moitya Gunda who had captured the place.

After their depositions, prosecutors Zead-al-Malum and Sultan Mahmud Simon cross examined them. Besides them, the tribunal asked Taher when he had heard about Motiur. The wit-ness said he had heard about Motiur after the independence.

A key nancier of Jamaat, Mir Kash-em is facing 14 charges of crimes against humanity which he had allegedly com-mitted in Chittagong in 1971.

Meanwhile, the defence in the trial of the alleged war criminal Syed Mo-hammad Qaisar, yesterday cross exam-ined the prosecutions eighth witness Shah Hussain Ali alias Sabu Miah for the second day. He gave his deposition on Tuesday. l

13th case against Tanvir, Jasmine to realise moneyn Md Sanaul Islam TipuSonali Bank yesterday led a fresh case against Hall-Mark Group Chair-man Jasmine Islam and Managing Di-rector Tanvir Mahmud for realising Tk226.43 crore from Wall Mart Fashion Limited, which swindled a signi -cant amount of money from the bank through forgery.

Abdus Salam, executive o cer of the banks Ruposhi Bangla Hotel branch, led the case with Artha Rin Adalat 1 (Money Loan Court) in Dhaka for realising the amount.

Judge Md Rabiuzzaman took the case into cognisance and ordered the defendants to submit a written statement before the court by May 26 through their counsel.

With the case, the authorities of the state-run commercial bank have led 13 cases against Hall-Mark Group for realising more than Tk388.25 crore.

Hall-Mark alone took away Tk2,686 crore from the bank through forged documents between 2010 and 2012. The scam shook the entire country when it came to light in May 2012.

On the other hand, the Anti-Cor-ruption Commission led 11 cases with Ramna police station against 27 per-sons tied to Hall-Mark and its lender Sonali Bank on October 4, 2012.

On October 7 last year, the graft watchdog pressed charges against 25 of the accused. Of them, seven persons including Tanvir are now behind the bars while Jasmine is on bail. Seven-teen others are absconding. l

ADMISSION TO ENGLISH MEDIUM SCHOOLS

High Court imposes an injunction against charging extra fees to studentsn Tribune Report The High Court yesterday imposed an injunction against charging students extra fees for admission in new sessions by the English medium schools authorities for the next three months.

An HC bench of Justice Mirza Hus-sain Haider and Justice Khurshid Alam Sarkar came up with the order.

Secretaries for education, law, home, primary and mass education, director general of the Directorate of Secondary and Higher Secondary Edu-cation, director general of the Director-ate of Primary Education and heads of 23 leading English medium schools in Dhaka have been made respondents to the petition led by a students guard-ian Zabed Faruk.

The court also issued a rule, ask-

ing the respondents to explain in four weeks why they should not be directed to form a monitoring cell and formu-late a guideline on supervising admis-sion and readmission fees collection process.

SC lawyers Bodruddoza Badal and JR Khan Robin pleaded for the peti-tioner while Attorney General Mah-bubey Alam and Deputy Attorney Gen-eral Al-Amin Sarker contended for the

government. The plea lodged on April 20 sought

the HC directives to stop charging En-glish medium students additional fees for admission.

The petition said the authorities of English medium schools are collecting extra fees from their students arbitrari-ly as there is no speci c guideline on charging admission, readmission and session fees. l

High Court rejects Khaledas petitions n Tribune Report The High Court rejected the pleas of BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia to revoke the lower court orders indicting her in two corruption cases involving Zia Charitable Trust and Zia Orphanage Trust, yesterday.

As a result of the orders passed by the bench of Justice Borhanuddin and Justice KM Kamrul Kader, there is no bar to starting the trials against the former prime minister.

However, the defence lawyers said they would move the Appellate Division against the High Court orders.

The presence of a good number of law enforcers on the Supreme Court premises hinted that the petitions would be rejected, alleged Khandker Mahbub Hossain, Khaledas lawyer and one of the advisers.

The hearing on the petitions was held for three days, ending on Sunday.

Khandker Mahbub, Moudud Ahmed and AJ Mohammad Ali contended

for Khaleda, while Attorney General Mahbubey Alam and the Anti-Corruption Commissions counsel Khurshid Alam Khan opposed the pleas.

On March 19, Judge Basudev Roy of the Dhakas Third Special Judges Court passed the indictment orders against Khaleda.

As yesterday was the date set for the orders, on April 21 the lower court xed May 21 for the start of the trials with depositions of prosecution witnesses.

Six people, including Khaleda and her elder son Tarique Rahman, have been indicted in the Zia Orphanage Trust case for embezzling over Tk2.1 crore by establishing a fake trust in 1991.

The lower court also indicted four people, including the BNP chief, in the Zia Charitable Trust case for raising funds by abusing the power of the Prime Ministers O ce during Khaledas 2001-2006 tenure. l

Teesta water ow in last 3 daysApril 21 830 Cusec

April 22 3,006 Cusec

April 23 1,242 Cusec

Ramesh credits diplomatic success for more Teesta watern Kamran Reza ChowdhuryThe Awami League-led governments diplomatic success, rather than BNPs long march, convinced India to release more of the Teesta River water, said the chairman of a parliamentary watchdog on water resources, yesterday.

Ramesh Chandra Sen made the com-ment after chairing the rst meeting of the parliamentary standing committee on water resources ministry.

Ramesh also said India will not cut the ow of water to the trans-boundary river, which is drying upon the Bangla-desh side because of unilateral with-drawal of its waters upstream.

The meeting brie y discussed signing an accord with India to share the waters of the Teesta River, which is considered a lifeline for farming in the northern Rangpur and Dinajpur districts.

Ramesh, a former water resourc-es minister, has claimed several times throughout his tenure during Awami Leagues last term that a Teesta wa-ter-sharing deal would be signed soon.

He raised the Teesta issue at yesterdays meeting in the presence of his successor, Anisul Islam Mahmud.

Ramesh said there was increased ow of water in the Teesta on Tuesday as New Delhi had put pressure on the West Bengal government.

Because of the governments dip-lomatic success, India released more of the Teestas water. This is not because of BNPs long march, he told the Dha-ka Tribune.

Terming West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee as a pig headed lady, Ramesh said she blocked the singing of a water-sharing deal during Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singhs visit to Dhaka in September 2011. l

Keraniganj residents block the Dhaka-Mawa highway yesterday, protesting the acquisition of local lands for a housing project for retired army o cials DHAKA TRIBUNE

Committee formed to probe Otobi re n Kailash SarkarFurniture manufacturer Otobi yester-day shut down its re-ravaged factory in Savar, while the Fire Service and Civ-il Defence (FSCD) authorities formed a three-member committee to probe the incident.

Factory authority put up a notice in front of its gate announcing the closure, while Sheikh Mohammad Rasel, assis-tant superintendent of police of Savar circle, told the Dhaka Tribune that addi-tional forces have been deployed at the factory to prevent any looting.

Meanwhile, Abdus Salam, director (administrations) of the FSCD, said the three-member committee headed by Deputy Director Farid Uddin has been tasked with nding out of the cause of the re and estimating damages, and submit report within three working days.

The re that broke out on Tuesday evening was doused by 13 units of re ghters. l

New taxi service awful for commuters Passengers allege that the new fare rate is double the previous amount n Abu Hayat MahmudThe newly inaugurated taxicab service has provoked a negative reaction from passengers as they say the new fare is almost double the amount they used to pay.

After a long wait, a brand new eet of taxicabs hit the city roads on Tues-day but failed to live up to the taxi rid-ers expectation, many said.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inau-gurated the new cab service operated by the Trust Transport Services under the Army Welfare Trust at the Army Golf Club in Kurmitola of the capital.

Following the inauguration, the pre-mier, however, urged the authorities concerned to x Tk85 as fare for rst two kilometres instead of Tk100.

The new rate came into e ect the rst day after the PMs directive.

But the taxi riders alleged that the new charge was telling on them. They termed the new rate double the fare they had to pay previously.

Shawkat Hossain, a commuter who took a Toma Taxicab, said: I came to Dainik Bangla from Gulshan a 12-kilo-metre-long distance and paid Tk554 as fare, which is much higher than before.

A Gulshan 1 resident, Munia Islam, also an employee of a private Bank in Motijheel, said: I was very hopeful about the new taxicab service, but the hike in fare has made me disinterested to hire a cab.

SM Russel, a driver with Toma Taxi,

avoided answering when asked about the new rates.

With a smile, he said he drove his taxi from morning to afternoon yester-day and earned Tk1,450.

Md Kamrul Hossain, a former driver of Navana Taxi, said: The present rate is almost double the earlier one.

Earlier the fare from Gulshan 2 to Dainik Bangla intersection was around Tk300, which currently goes over Tk550, he said, adding that if this rate

continues, the new taxicab service will not be able to draw passengers.

MAN Siddique, secretary of the Roads Division under the Ministry of Communications, told the Dhaka Tri-bune: The fare rate has already been reduced after the PMs directive, and it has been brought into e ect from the day of inauguration.

When contacted, Brigadier General (rtd) Mustafa Kamal, chief executive o cer of Toma Taxi, echoed the same

sentiment.There is no chance to further re-

duce the existing fare rate Tk85 for the rst kilometer because the cabs run on octane. The fare may rise in the future in accordance with the hike in fuel price, he added.

The fare for the new AC taxi service was xed at Tk100 for the rst two kilo-metres, Tk34 for every subsequent ki-lometre and Tk8.5 per two-minutes of waiting, while for the non-AC ones, the

fare would come down to Tk50, Tk20 and Tk5 respectively.

The rate is comparatively higher than in other major cities in South Asia and in the south-east Asian counties.

In Kolkata, an AC taxicab charges Tk32.31 at the beginning of the journey, Tk19.38 for every subsequent kilome-tre and Tk1.52 per minute of waiting.

In Kuala Lumpur, a taxicab charges Tk71.25 for the rst one kilometre, Tk23.23 for every subsequent kilome-tre and Tk10 per minute of waiting.

In Bangkok, Tk101 is charged as fare for the rst one kilometre and Tk11.95 for 2 to 12 kilometres.

In Dhaka city, with its constant grid-lock, a journey by an AC taxicab from Mouchak to Mirpur 10 that covers 12km costs around Tk550, while by a non-AC taxicab the fare might be around Tk325.

The Trust Transport Services of Army Welfare Trust will initially op-erate in the capital with 27 taxicabs with the 1500cc engines of the Premio, Allion, Probox and Axio models pur-chased from Japans auto giant, Toyota.

Another private organisation, Toma Group, will also operate 19 air-condi-tioned taxicabs of the same kind.

The two companies will operate 650 taxicabs in Dhaka and Chittagong.

The Trust Transport Services is ex-pected to introduce 400 such taxicabs while Toma Group will introduce an-other 250.

The Army Welfare Trust will operate 150 taxis in Chittagong. l

5NewsDHAKA TRIBUNE Thursday, April 24, 2014

PRAYER TIMES Fajar 4:10am Sunrise 5:29am Zohr 11:57am Asr 4:32pm Magrib 6:24pm Esha 7:44pm

Source: IslamicFinder.org

Source: Accuweather/UNB

SUNNY

F O R E C A S T F O R T O D A Y

Dhaka 39 28

Chittagong 35 27

Rajshahi 41 26

Rangpur 40 24

Khulna 40 25

Barisal 40 26

Sylhet 39 24

Coxs Bazar 35 27

D H A K ATODAY TOMORROW

SUN SETS 6:24PM SUN RISES 5:29AM

YESTERDAYS HIGH AND LOW41.6C 19.5CJessore Sayedpur

WEATHER

THURSDAY, APRIL 24

7kg explosives recovered in Dhakan Kailash SarkarRAB arrested two men with 7.1kg of ex-plosives and raw materials which they claim they were going to use to make explosives in the capitals Abdullahpur area in Uttara early yesterday.

The arrested men are Ahmed Ali Sagar, 26, from Pashchimpara in Abdul-lahpur, and Md Azahar, 20, from Mad-hya Badera under Mymensingh Sadar upazila.

RAB 2 personnel conducted raid act-ing on a tip-o at Sagars house at Road 6, Abdullahpur around 4:30am and re-covered the explosives and raw materi-als, said Raihan Uddin Khan, additional superintendent of police ana d the op-eration o cer of RAB 2.

During primary interrogation, Sagar and Azahar confessed that they had collected the explosives and raw materials to supply bombs to aid sub-versive activities, like they had in the

past, said the RAB 2 o cial.According to RAB, Sagar is one of

the main patronisers in making and supplying bombs. Prior to the arrest, he had been on the run because of a case led against him on October 25 last year with Uttara East policestation.

The elite force said the detained were professional bomb makers, but they had yet to disclose their political a liation. l

French authors book on 71 to launch tomorrown Tribune ReportA Bangla translation of Les Indes roug-es, written by noted French author and philosopher Barnard-Henri Lvy, will be launched at La Galerie of Alliance Franaise de Dhaka at its Dhanmondi branch tomorrow at 5pm, followed by a book signing session by the author.

A leading intellectual gure in France and shortly associated with the rst Bangladeshi administration, Levy covered the 1971 Liberation War of Ban-gladesh for Combat, a French newspa-per created during the Second World War. Les Indes rouges is his only work on the Liberation War.

Minister of Liberation War A airs AKM Mozammel Huq will be chief guest at the launch ceremony, while Professor Kaiser Haq, poet, essayist and a free-dom ghter, and Shishir Bhattacharja, translator, will be present as guest of honour and special guest, respectively.

Lvy will also give a talk on Phi-losophy and Commitment: For a phi-

losophy of action at the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh Campus A, on Saturday at 5pm.

Opening of Marlaux GardenJardin Marlaux (Marlaux Garden),

named after the rst French minister for cultural a airs, Andr Marlaux, will be o cially inaugurated at Dhaka Uni-versity on Saturday at 10am.

It is located near the universitys Faculty of Business Studies building, and is a tribute to his vehement support of Bangladeshs liberation movement.

Minister of Liberation War A airs AKM Mozammel Huq will be the chief guest at the opening ceremony, while His Excellency Michel Trinquier, French ambassador to Bangladesh, and Lvy will be present as guest of honour and special guest, respectively.

Following the ceremony, the inau-gural speeches will take place at the universitys Senate Bhaban at 10:30am and at 11:15am there will be a screening of a 31-minute documentary by Phillipe Halphen. l

Young woman held with 1kg gold at Dhaka airportn Kailash Sarkar A young woman was arrested with a gold bar, weighing 1kg, at the Shahjalal International Airport on Tuesday night.

Mariyam Akhter, 24, was arrested with the bar around 10pm immedi-ately after her arrival at Dhaka on a Malaysian Airlines ight from Malay-sia, said Ayesha Akhter, an assistant director of the Customs Intelligence and Investigation Directorate (CIID) atthe airport.

A CIID team seized the gold bar by searching her body while she was crossing the immigration, said the CIID o cial.

O cials of the CIID at the airport said that the detainee who hailed from Munshiganj admitted that she carried the smuggled gold from Malaysia, which was given by a man in Malaysia.

She was handed over to Airport po-lice station where a case was also led in this connection.

Earlier on Monday night, the CIID

personnel also seized 20 gold bars weighing 20kg and arrested 4 people, including a security guard of the Civ-il Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (CAAB).

Sources said the customs and police o cials seized around 70kg of gold at Dhaka airport and around di erent places of the capital, while over 100kg gold was seized in Chittagong and Syl-het this month.

Smuggling of gold has become fre-quent since the Indian authorities im-posed some restrictions on the import of gold.

A section of unscrupulous o cials and employees of di erent government and private organisations, including customs, NSI, the CAAB and di erent airlines, working at the airports have been aiding the smugglers.

In September last year, an investi-gation committee identi ed at least 18 o cials of the Biman Bangladesh Air-lines for their involvement in two sepa-rate hauls of smuggled-gold. l

Fire at Tejgaon, Mirpur n Tribune Report Separate res broke out yesterday in the capitals Mirpur and Tejgaon areas, while no causality was reported in the incidents.

In Tejgaon, a blaze broke out at a warehouse of the Bengal Group, sit-uated next to the Bengal Multimedia Studio around 5:20pm. Fire Service o cials said eight re- ghting units brought it under control within an hour.

The studio is owned by private tele-

vision channel RTV, a subsidiary of the Bengal Group. The warehouse is situat-ed next to the studio, just opposite the BSTI Tejgaon o ce.

Ataur Rahman, duty o cer of re service control, said they suspected that re broke out from electric circuit.

In Mirpur 2, re broke out at Mas-jid Market beside Commerce College around 12:15pm.

Three res ghting units rushed to the spot and doused the blaze within 15 minutes, said Ataur Rahman. l

Chhatra League expels ve CU unit activistsn CU CorrespondentBangladesh Chhatra League has ex-pelled ve of its activists of Chittagong University unit on charges of attacking a central Awami League leader.

The decision to expel them was tak-en at a meeting on Tuesday night, 17 days of the incident.

The expelled activists are Rubel Dey, Shohel and Shuvo of English De-partment, Mehraj of Computer Science Department and Asif of Islamic History Department. All of them are third year students.

Con rming the decision, Rashed-ul Islam Rashed, deputy publicity a airs secretary of Chhatra League told the Dhaka Tribune that the de-cision was made in connection with the attack on Awami League central sub-committee Secretary Nasir HaidarBabul.

A group of Chhatra League activists had attacked Nasir and physically as-saulted him at the library premises on the campus in presence of ABM Mohi-uddin, Awami League city unit presi-dent, on April 5.

Following the incident, Nasir led a case with Hathazari police sta-tion and the central Chhatra League leaders visited campus to probe theincident. l

Three hurt in BCL factional clashat RUn RU CorrespondentThree leaders and activists of the Ban-gladesh Chhatra Leagues Rajshahi Uni-versity unit were injured in a factional clash on the campus over a previous enmity, yesterday.

The injured are the General Sec-retary Touhid-al-Hossain Tuhin and activists Kabir Hossain and Murad Hossain, a rst year and a second year student, respectively, of the History Department.

Witnesses said the incident ensued around 1:30pm at the Tukitaki Chattar on the campus when Kabir, a supporter of the RU unit Chhatra League Presi-dent Mizanur Rahman Rana, and Mu-rad Hossain, a supporter of the General Secretary Tuhin, argued over a previ-ous enmity.

During the scu e, Kabir and Murad brought out sharp weapons and rearms in the presence of the law enforcers.

On receiving information about this, the General Secretary Tuhin, along with other leaders and activists, rushed to the spot to di use the situation. Tuhin was injured as he tried to take away the sharp weapon from Kabir.

Following the incident, both rival groups took up positions on the cam-pus, while the Proctor Professor Tarikul Hasan and the law enforcers brought the situation under control.

When contacted, Tuhin told the Dhaka Tribune that the incident en-sued from a misunderstanding and added that he had settled the issue. l

ATTACK ON 10 JOURNALISTS

RMCH interns withdraw strike, journalists continue protest n Our Correspondent, RajshahiIntern doctors at Rajshahi Medical College Hospital returned to work yes-terday, ending a two-day strike that caused immense su erings to patients.

The intern doctors had gone on an inde nite strike on Sunday night fol-lowing a scu e with some journalists, who were at the hospital to cover the alleged mistreatment of a patients relatives. At least 10 newsmen were in-jured when a group of interns assault-ed them with hockey sticks and batons snatched from police guards.

In the meantime, journalists in Ra-jshahi demonstrated for a third day yesterday demanding exemplary pun-ishment of the interns responsible for Sundays incident.

Over 100 journalists formed a hu-man chain at Shaheb Bazar Zero point in the city to protest the attack on their colleagues. They were joined by mem-

bers of civil society and cultural and political activists.

Later, journalist leaders went