So what did they do for nine years?
Sixty-seven men and women met with tragic death in the recent devastating fire that struck Chawkbazar. Since then, the government ministers and officials of the administration have been busy debating over whether the fire was sparked off by a gas cylinder explosion or chemical substances. Their bickering over the issue is not only blatantly irresponsible, but cruel too. Those who visited the site of the fire are witness to the precarious manner in which the people of Old Dhaka live.
It is not as if our government, ministers and officers of the administration are not aware of the situation. They are very well aware of it and that is why when any mishap occurs, they shake themselves out of their slumber to visit the site or sit in their offices and spew out all sorts of directives, make all sorts of commitments, form inquiry committees and sternly warn that no one will be spared if found responsible for the disaster.
Then all is forgotten. It’s back to hibernation unless the next accident occurs. What the ministers and officers of the administration are now saying in wake of the Chawkbazar tragedy, is almost identical to what they had said nine years ago in the aftermath of the Nimtali tragedy. And in that span of nine years, so many lives have been lost, so much property destroyed, but they remain impervious.
When 124 persons died in the fire that broke out in Nimtali of Old Dhaka in 2010, there was a flurry of activity on the part of the government. The prime minister declared the orphaned girls to be her own daughters. The home ministry formed an inquiry committee. Another committee was formed at the behest of the fire service. The city corporation came forward. No one knows what happened after that.
The inquiry committee headed by additional secretary for home affairs Iqbal Khan Chowdhury came up with 17 recommendations to prevent such fires. The first recommendation was to remove all warehouses, factories and shops storing chemical substances from the area. The other recommendations were: constructing buildings in Old Dhaka with designs aimed at easy access to the area, installing fire-fighting systems, being more selective in providing permission for the sale outlets and sale of chemicals, acids and other inflammable substances, if necessary, setting up a separate industrial zone for the sale and storage of such substances, installing water hydrants in Old Dhaka, inspecting the transformers every month, forming a national taskforce comprising various departments of the government to tackle disasters, coordinating between off departments when issuing licences for inflammable chemical substances, strengthening the fire and civil defence department, mobilising public awareness concerning fires, including topics related to fire extinguishing, rescue and first aid in school curriculum, ensuring all community centres have fire fighting equipment, ensuring fire fighting equipment is a part of event management, relocating chemical factories from residential areas and taking stern measures against such illegal establishments.
In reaction to this report, the home minister at the time Sahara Khatun said that the government had already taken the decision to remove chemical shops and warehouses from the area. Mobile courts set up in the area conducted 104 cases and extracted 3.52 million taka in fines. And the home secretary of the time, Shamsul Huq Tuku, said Old Dhaka will be rebuilt if necessary. But in actuality, it is the new Dhaka that in taking on the shape of the old town.
Not a single one of the recommendations has been implemented in the last nine years, it seems.
Each and every building in Old Dhaka remains unprotected and unsafe. The building code has been totally ignored. There are no spaces between the buildings. The roads are narrow, but lined on either side with tall structures, one pressed against the other. And the ground floor of these buildings house chemical warehouses. People live alongside.
We have people’s representatives (no matter how they were elected) to draw up laws. There is the administration to implement these laws. But there is no one to monitor if anyone is violating these laws.
We call Dhaka our favourite city, but no one cares to oversee how it is running. Various international surveys place Bangladesh at the top of the list of uninhabitable cities. So what are the mayors and the local government agencies doing? They visit the site of the disaster and form committees. But they take no tangible measures to prevent such disasters from occurring. They do not take any measures against the offenders. According to the law, all buildings must have adequate fire fighting equipment. But this has not been ensured in Old Dhaka. Nor in the newer parts of the city either, for that matter.
It is the lawmakers in the country that break the law more. Those with political or financial clout, totally ignore the law. Some of the ministers and leaders have said that initiative has been taken to remove all chemical warehouses from Old Dhaka. Prothom Alo reported that the proposal for a chemical village remains lying in the dust for the last eight years. So where will these chemical warehouses and factories of Old Dhaka be shifted?
The ministers and leaders talk big but do little. And that is why this disaster struck again after nine years. So many lives were snatched away. Who will tell us why the recommendations of 2010 have not been implemented? The home minister at the time is no longer a minister. A new minister is in office. The industries minister of the time too is no longer in office. We had one mayor at the time, now we have two. And yet not a single recommendation has been implemented. This is a grave lapse of duty. One department blames the other and this mud-slinging continues down till today.
In our country there is a propensity to put the blame on the shoulders of the predecessors. The ministers say, “The previous government has ruined everything.” But Awami League was in government in 2010 and still is. So who will they blame?
When people were killed in a train accident in India, the railway minister at the time, Lal Bahadur Shastri, took the blame and resigned. We don’t expect this in Bangladesh, but at least they can admit their failure. That would give hope for the mistake to be rectified. But if everything simply follows the ‘development role model’, there is all chance of more such disasters ahead.
* Sohrab Hassan is joint editor of Prothom Alo and a poet. He can be contacted at [email protected]. This piece appeared in Bangla in the print version of Prothom Alo and has been rewritten here in English by Ayesha Kabir