Armanitola chemical warehouse fire: 2 owners arrested

Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) on Monday arrested two chemical warehouse owners from Bogura and Dhaka city in connection with a case filed over the blaze in old Dhaka's Armanitola Friday, reports UNB.

The arrestees are the owners of the warehouse from which the fire broke out and left five people dead.

Mostafizur Rahman, owner of Moin and Brothers, and Mohammad Mostafa, owner of RS Enterprise, illegally stored flammable items and chemicals, said RAB spokesperson assistant superintendent of police Imran Khan.

A special team comprising RAB intelligence and RAB-10 Battalion conducted a drive at Nandigram of Bagura at around 4am and arrested Mustafizur. Another team of the elite force carried out a raid in the city's Uttara-10 at around 5am and arrested Mustafa.

During preliminary interrogation, both the arrestees said they had been storing chemicals in their warehouses but did not have legal permission to do so.

The fire broke out at a chemical storage facility on the ground floor of the six-storey Haji Musa Mansion early Friday, left five people dead and at least 35 wounded. It took 19 firefighters nearly three hours to douse the flames.

The case over Friday's fire was filed with Bangshal police station on the night of the incident.