Dhaka magistrate has directed police to investigate a complaint filed by the wife of a victim who had alleged that her husband and other workers were 'pushed to death' by the building owner
Police in Bangladesh are investigating possible murder charges against the owner of a shoddily built factory that collapsed nearly two weeks ago after the wife of a victim filed a complaint.
Officials on Tuesday said that the death toll from the country’s worst industrial disaster had reached 675.
Sheuli Akter, the wife of Jahangir Alam who was crshed to death, had filed a complaint before Dhaka magistrate Wasim Sheikh. In the complaint, she alleged that her husband and other workers were 'pushed toward death' by building owner Mohammed Sohel Rana and two others.
Alam was employed in New Wave Styles Ltd, one of the five garment factories housed in the eight-story Rana Plaza that collapsed 24t April as workers started their morning shift even though cracks had developed in the building.
New Wave Styles owner Bazlul Adnan and local Government engineer Imtemam Hossain were the two others accused in the case.
The Magistrate has ordered police to investigate the complaints, and local police chief Mohammed Asaduzzman said that they would now investigate possible murder charges.
A conviction for murder can result in a death sentence in Bangladesh.
Nine people, including Rana and Adanan, have already been arrested on other charges. Rana faces charges such as negligence and illegal construction, which are punishable by a maximum of seven years in jail.
By this evening, the death toll had reached 675, according to the police control room at the scene. It is not known how many people are still missing, as workers use heavy equipment to search through the rubble. There is a stench around the collapse site from decomposing bodies.
Officials say Rana illegally added three floors and allowed the garment factories to install generators. Vibrations from garment machines and from the generators were thought to have contributed to the collapse.
The disaster is the worst ever in the garment sector, surpassing the 1911 garment disaster in New York’s Triangle Shirtwaist factory, which killed 146 workers, and more recent tragedies such as a 2012 fire that killed about 260 people in Pakistan and one in Bangladesh that killed 112, also in 2012.
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