Tampaco fire: Plea for sufficient compensation for victims

Three rights organisations today moved a writ petition before the High Court seeking its directive on the authorities concerned to give sufficient compensations to the victims of boiler explosion at Tampaco Foils Limited's factory in Tongi of Gazipur.

In the tragic incident that took place on September 10, so far 35 people were killed, several were injured and 11 are still missing. The exact number of injured people could not be known yet.

After concluding a primary hearing today, the HC bench of Justice M Enayetur Rahim and Justice Ashish Ranjan Das fixed September 26 for passing an order on the petition.

Ain O Salish Kendra, Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association and Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust collectively submitted the petition as public interest litigation to the HC on September 19 seeking its directive on the authorities to provide proper treatment to the people injured in the tragic incident of the explosion.  

In the petition, they prayed to the HC bench to order the government to identify the people who are responsible for the tragedy and to take appropriate legal action against them, petitioners' lawyer Sharif Bhuiyan told The Daily Star.

He said the petitioners requested to the HC to ask the government to submit the probe reports on the incident before the court and to take effective steps so that such incident does not take place in future.

They also urged the HC to direct the government to freeze the bank accounts of Tampaco Foils Limited factory and its owners so that they cannot transfer the money and the money can be used for compensations of the victims, the lawyer said.

Citing from the writ petition, counsel Sharif Bhuiyan said the incident of boiler explosion took place in the factory due to a violation of the relevant laws.

Under the labour law, building construction act and boiler law, the factory owners have to ensure the safety of workers in the factory buildings, congenial environment for them, fire extinguishing system and other relevant issues, he said.

The lawyer also said the incident of explosion and disaster of the factory would not take place if the laws were followed properly.