Minister gets trapped in lift

Health and Family Welfare Minister Mohammed Nasim was trapped inside an elevator in his office at the secretariat yesterday.

The incident happened around 3:30pm when the minister, along with six other people, got into the elevator from the second floor to get down to a lower floor, a ministry official, seeking anonymity, told The Daily Star.

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Fire service unit of the secretariat was called in after initial attempts of rescuing the minister by officials of the ministry failed. Another unit from the fire service headquarters soon joined in the effort and succeeded in freeing all the seven passengers of the elevator by breaking open its door, said the official. 

According to various news portals, the minister was trapped there for around half an hour.

A Fire Service and Civil Defence official told this correspondent that the minister and six other people were trapped inside the elevator as it became jammed on the ground floor after it descended from the second floor.

They had to break the elevator door open to bring the minister out to safety, the fire official said, adding that without conducting a thorough investigation he could not throw any further light on why the elevator could have become jammed.