Amar Bangladesh Party or AB Party on Saturday demanded justice for victims of various fire and explosion incidents in Dhaka and elsewhere in the country over the years.
The party made the call at a rally in front of the National Press Club on Saturday, said a press release.
Presided over by AB Party joint convenor and professor major (retired) Abdul Wahab Minar, joint convenor and Supreme Court lawyer Tajul Islam and joint member secretary Asaduzzaman Fuaad spoke at the event.
Tajul islam said an endless looting and plundering has made this state unsafe for every citizens, signalling an Awami League-sponsored 1974-style famine is knocking on door of tens of millions of working class people. Even the cost of performing hajj has gone up to subsidise the oligarchs and kleptocrats.
This regime had forcefully taken all the money with the public service providers like Titash, PDB and WASA rendering service cuts at the expenses of public safety that is being unfolded through fires and explosions across the country, he added.
Asaduzzaman Fuaad said the government is not even interested in investigating into the incidents thoroughly and professionally so that the opposition parties can be made scapegoats each time a similar accident takes place.
The nation witnessed similar explosions in 2010 in Nimtoli in Old Dhaka killing 124 while the Chow Bazaar blast claimed 78 lives in 2019. Yet, the government had no interest to remove thousands of chemical factories and equally inflammable plastic companies from the old town, he said.
In his concluding remarks, AB Party leader professor Abdul Wahab Minar said they demand that those killed and got severely injured should be adequately compensated and rehabilitated.
Ruling party must stop scaremongering and spread barrage of lies to facilitate a fair investigation. Old Dhaka should be cleaned off, at once and for all, to ensure public safety which remains at the heart of reshuffling the city, he added.