Chawkbazar tragedy and trading blame

According to a certain minister, Dhaka resembles Paris or Los Angeles from the air. And now this city in embroiled in a debate as to who is responsible for the fire that gutted a section of the old quarter of the city and killed 67 persons. The TV, radio and newspapers are replete with reports and analysis on this debate, and the social media has gone on overdrive.
A sad long sigh of despondence hangs over it all. The sigh says that soon all this lamenting, pain and anger will fade along with the headlines and the people will go back to living on the time bomb of highly flammable chemicals.
The headlines on 22 February quoted relevant quarters in the government as saying, “Chemical warehouses will be relocated from Old Dhaka.” These headlines were exactly the same as those after the 3 June 2010 fire at Nimtali. A look back at the news reports at that time reveals that then too it had been said, “Government to take all responsibility for treatment of the injured,” and “Tk 100,000 compensation for each dead person.”
In that fire too, shortage of water to extinguish the fire had been mentioned along with the inadequacy of the fire service’s equipment. The urban experts came up with all sort of analyses and recommendations and much of that is being repeated this time around. What is glaringly lacking is accountability.
When an initial idea about the extent of the fire emerged early morning on 21 February, I remembered the left-wing politician Dilip Barua. I wanted to ask him whether he had any sort of self-recrimination about the failure to remove the chemical substances from the area. I didn’t have to make that call. Just a day later, on 23 February, he visited the area along with a team of the 14 party alliance and simply dumped the blame on his predecessor in the industries ministry, Amir Hossain Amu. He said, “As minister, I took a decision to relocate the chemical business, the chemical merchant association and BSCIC together decided that it would be shifted to a location outside of Dhaka. That was our commitment. But this could not be taken ahead for certain discreet matters.”
There may be inner-alliance politics in Dilip Baruas’s blame game, but the fact remains that he is no less responsible than his predecessor Amir Hossain Amu. More importantly, there is no such integrity in politics where responsibility can be admitted. After the June 2010 accident, a decision was taken to remove all chemical warehouses from Old Dhaka within 30 August that year. But within a month or two, the minister began to relent to pressure from the business persons and in mid-August he extended the time limit for relocation to 30 September. He said that at the request of the business persons, the time had been extended for roza and Eid. However, he added, if these businessmen did not remove their establishments with the new timeframe, the government task force would take legal action. During his term as minister, the task force never undertook that initiative. Within two years from the Nimtali fire, he admitted that it had not been possible to remove the factories. He said that certain formalities took time.
Dhaka (South) mayor Sayeed Khokan admitted that it had not been possible to relocate these warehouses and factories even in 2017 due to pressure from the businessmen. In March that year, a mobile court was brought in to do the job, but was suspended due to requests from the apex business body FBCCI and chemical substance traders.
It is clear that, in violation of the housing laws and various regulations pertaining to urban management, things remain the same in the old city due to the business network spread out there. The small and medium businessmen used personal efforts, bribes and lobbying to halt the relocation plans and top business chamber had a hand in this too.
There seems to be a link between the increase of business persons’ representation in parliament and the government’s inert stance when it comes to action against unethical exertion of clout. Businessmen have a much stronger clout then politicians in politics of wealth. According to Transparency International, 59 per cent of the 10th parliament was made up of business persons. According to Shujan, this is now 62 per cent in the 11th parliament.
An example of such clout is the BGMEA building erected behind Sonargaon Hotel on government land in Hatirjheel. The Chawkbazar incident is another example. With an incredibly speedy investigation, the new industries minister Nurul Majid Humayun said that there were no chemical substances stocked in Chawkbazar. What does this statement indicate? And even before the experts have been able to carry out their inquiries, there is a strong move to establish the source of the fire and the manner in which it spread.
If the source of the fire was a gas cylinder, perhaps in a vehicle, does that mean the risk factor of the chemicals is obliterated? Or have the chemical substances made it even riskier for the residents of the area? Just as it is important to determine the source of the fire, it also must be ascertained as to why it spread so fast and extensively. Also, the obstacles to bringing the fire under control must be identified. And not just gas cylinders in vehicles, but also those used for cooking in homes and restaurants may also be a problem. Petrol or diesel, that is car fuel, may also be the cause of the fire.
The question is whether the relevant authorities are carrying out their responsibilities to ensure the safety of the inflammable substances being used as fuel by the people. The important question is about the accountability of those responsible for the implementation and monitoring of the safety regulations pertaining to the dangerous chemical substances being stocked in residential areas and small risky industries being set up there.
The rule of law and accountability are closely linked, and one is not possible without the other. And these cannot be expected unless an effective democracy is in place. The effectiveness of our democracy has long been lost. The parliament formed through the 2009 elections where Awami League won with an absolute majority, aw a one tenth representation of BNP. So they had no effective role in parliament when it came to the 2010 Nimtali tragedy. Then ever since the 2014 one-sided election, the government has virtually no opposition. In absence of any opposition, there is no need for accountability. So it should not come as a surprise when headlines are repeated after eight years.
The mayor of South Dhaka city corporation who originally lived in Old Dhaka, has moved to the capital’s upscale Gulshan area. It is true that he alone cannot bring the state of Old Dhaka to the level of the ‘Parisian’ new Dhaka, but his distance from the area perhaps detracts from that empathy with the sufferings, problems and risks of the people in the old city.
- Kamal Ahmed is a senior journalist. This piece appeared in the print version of Prothom Alo and has been rewritten here in English by Ayesha Kabir