DHAKA: A committee investigating a deadly collapse of a building housing garment factories in Bangladesh will recommend that nine people detained in connection with the disaster be sentenced to life in prison, the panel’s chief said yesterday.
The six-member committee, due to submit its conclusions to the government tomorrow, has singled out shoddy construction and the improper issue of building permits as the main reasons for the accident which killed more than 1,100 people.
“We asked the government to give the highest punishment to all the accused as it was nothing but gross negligence of responsibilities for which 1,130 innocent workers were killed,” Mainuddin Khandaker, a senior interior ministry official, said.
A life sentence handed down in Bangladeshi courts generally means a 30-year prison term. The accident has sparked campaigns in the West to improve safety standards at plants supplying major fashion brands.
The owner of the Rana Plaza building, Mohammed Sohel Rana, was arrested after a four-day hunt as he appeared to be fleeing to neighbouring India.
Also in custody are Rana’s father, owners of most of the factories in the complex as well as engineers and officials who approved the building permits for the eight-storey complex in the Dhaka suburb of Savar. “The construction materials were substandard and under specifications,” Khandaker said, referring to the ratio of sand and cement used in construction.
Reuters
