Some form of closure has finally arrived for the family of Obaidul Haque, who had been missing since the deadly Rana Plaza disaster, after the garment worker’s skeletal remains were recently recovered from under the debris of the building.
Obaidul, who worked at the New Wave Bottoms factory and hailed from Mymensingh, was the first among the missing workers whose full skeleton had been found since the rescue operation was called off.
Although eight and a half months had passed since the tragedy occurred, human bones and skulls are still being found at the Rana Plaza site, as relatives of many missing people continue their wait to be able to bury their loved ones.
The long wait for Obaidul’s family ended when his skeleton was found along with an identity card and a mobile phone, during a series of search drives.
Locals said the first human skull was recovered on December 13 last year by street children, who were trying to collect iron rods and pieces from the debris.
Following the incident, garment workers, street children and voluntary organisations conducted more drives and found at least 310 pieces of human skeletal remains, including four skulls from the debris, said Emdadul Islam, president of Rana Plaza Garments Workers Union.
He added that street children carried out searches on four occasions at the site, while other organisations carried out five drives.
The highest number of bones recovered during a single drive was 110 different skeletal pieces from eight separate places at the Rana Plaza site, Emdadul said.
“On our last drive on January 3, we recovered 28 pieces of human bones including a skull from the debris. We wanted to continue the drives, but police barred us, saying the bones were cow bones and threatened us with arrest,” said Emdadul, who worked at Rana Plaza’s Phantom Garments as an iron man and was rescued after 24 hours of the deadly collapse.
The locals who were involved in the searches said they had seen many bone parts lying neglected in three water-reservoirs at the site.
“We just want to conduct a drive at the three places, and we are sure that we could recover some bodies of the unlucky workers from there,” said Emdadul.
Labour rights leaders also urged authorities concerned to launch renewed search efforts, saying it was now clear that not all bodies had been found during the initial rescue drive.
Rafiqul Islam Sujan, president of Bangladesh Garment and Industrial Workers Federation, told the Dhaka Tribune that another search in the debris was very much needed.
Labour leader Syed Sultan Uddin Ahmed, also the assistant executive director at Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies, said: “A search is immediately needed and the government cannot neglect the issue now, just because it is no longer a burning issue.”
While visiting the site on Thursday afternoon, many relatives of the missing workers were found to be waiting there for updates about searches for their loved ones.
Shapla, who was injured in the Rana Plaza collapse, said her brother Solaimen Hossain Sentu – who also worked with her on the third floor of the building – remains missing since the incident.
“I provided DNA in Dhaka, but so far, none of the found bodies are my brother’s. So I come here often hoping one day, my brother’s body parts would be found,” she said.
When contacted, Savar model police station Officer-in-Charge Mostafa Kamal claimed that some people were staging a drama to embarrass the government, adding that the bones were not “human,” rather they were “cow bones” or had been collected from outside.
The bones have been sent to the National Forensic DNA Profiling Lab in Dhaka to verify the true identity of the bones, he added.
Savar Upazila Nirbahi Officer Kamrul Hasan Molla, who was now in charge of the debris site, admitted that he had received pieces of recovered human bodies and had already sent them to the DNA lab at Dhaka Medical Collage and Hospital.
“After getting results from the lab, we would have an indication that whether these bones belong to Rana Plaza workers or not; and then, we will decide whether it is necessary to run a fresh search,” he said.
Kamrul also said his office had already sent a report to the higher authority in this regard, but did not clarify who the higher authority was.
At least 1,134 people were killed and thousands more injured when the nine-storied Rana Plaza collapsed on April 24 last year.
The Ninth Infantry Division of army, which led the rescue, abandoned the search for survivors on May 13.
According to a statement issued by the Inter Services Public Relations Directorate, 261 people remained untraced at the site. The army identified those 261 out of 329 people who were reportedly missing after the collapse.
Saturday 11 January 2014
http://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/2014/jan/11/bones-and-skulls-still-being-found-rana-plaza-debris
