Form committee to find out causes, people responsible

The High Court yesterday directed the government to immediately form an expert committee to find out the causes and people responsible for the devastating fire at BM Container Depot in Chattogram's Sitakunda in which 52 people were killed and more than 200 were injured in last June.

The secretary at the ministry of energy and mineral resources has been ordered to constitute the committee led by a professor from Chemical Engineering Department of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Buet) for this purpose.

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In response to a petition, the HC also asked the expert committee to submit its report before this court in three months after receiving the order, Deputy Attorney General Arobinda Kumar Roy told The Daily Star.

At the same time, the HC also issued a rule asking the government and container depot to explain in four weeks why they should not be directed to give adequate compensation to the families of the victims who were killed and injured in the fire at BM Depot. The HC also asked why negligence and failure in preventing the incident and to bring the fire under control immediately should not be declared illegal and why legal action should not be taken against them.

He said 20 people including the secretaries at the ministries of energy and mineral resources, and commerce; and owners of BM Container Depot and its partner Smart Group have been made respondents to the rule.     The HC bench of Justice Md Mozibur Rahman Miah and Justice Kazi Md Ejarul Haque Akondo came up with the order and issued the rule following a petition filed by rights organization Law and Life Foundation.