'negligence is responsible for accident'
The latest addition to the rising death toll in accidents was a crane losing balance and falling onto a private vehicle in an under-construction infrastructure girder in the north, killing five people on the spot.
Accidents do not happen while lifting heavy objects with cranes or moving them from one place to another. I saw with Google search, crane-related accidents are happening in all the developed countries of the world. So why am I asking the question about the accident in Bangladesh, can it be called an accident or is it a murder?
The reason for asking such a question is that people are still dying in crane accidents in developed countries despite having all kinds of safety measures in place. In other words, in spite of taking all the necessary safety measures in accordance with the standard rules for the use of cranes, crane-related incidents still occur and even people die.
Here is the difference between Bangladesh and other countries. In the incident that took place in Uttara, the standard rules for the use of cranes, including the lifting of heavy objects by cranes, were far from following the minimum rules. As the mayor of Dhaka North said, there was a complete lack of compliance in all places. What greater reason can there be than this to create circumstances of negligence and murder.
Now let's see, what does the law of Bangladesh say about accidents at work and accidental death?
Article 5 of the Penal Code or Penal Code of Bangladesh states that the accident during the legal act of acting: 'Any legal work and precautionary work done with legal medium and proper care and precautions without any kind of crime or any kind of criminal purpose or disregard.'
The construction going on in Uttara is a legal work but there is a question whether the work is being carried out with due care and caution. Before discussing this in more detail, let's see what is said about murder in the penal code. Section 300 of the Penal Code has been written in four parts regarding which type of loss of life will fall in the stage of murder; There it is said in the fourth part—the person who does the work if he knows that the work is so dangerous that it is likely to result in death or is likely to result in death and if he does the work.
From the video footage and eyewitness accounts of the Uttara incident, we have come to know that proper quality cranes were not used to lift the girders there. In the case of doing such a dangerous work, the rule of stopping the traffic on the road was not obeyed or no arrangement was made to drive the vehicle at a safe distance. The reason we see, said the Mayor of Dhaka North, was that there was no compliance. As a result he is suspending work. The decision to suspend work is good but why was compliance not agreed before the incident? Or was he not supervised? That leaves the question. And it is from this place that the public realizes that these are not accidents, but murders. This realization in the human mind was not created in a day or came from northern events.
Accidents happen and people die in developed countries after taking all kinds of safety measures. And by not ensuring the safety of people here, people's lives are put at risk and they are pushed towards death. As a result, more deaths occur than accidents. And the matter does not end here. In Bangladesh, in most of these cases, there is no trial or the trial process takes a long time. It took a year to prepare the charge sheet for the Tazreen Fashion Factory fire. And even though 10 years have passed after the incident, the testimony of the witnesses has not ended yet. On the other hand, if we take the case of the crane accident in America, one of the developed countries in the world, it can be seen that the verdict was announced and the verdict was implemented in about two years. And the offenders are punished and the aggrieved families are compensated with hefty fines. If you google you can find many case judgments on this. I just say one thing—four people in cars and pedestrians were killed and four were injured when a part of a crane fell from the top of a building under construction in Seattle, USA. The final judgment of the incident in 2019 was in 2022 and the responsible companies paid 150 million dollars or 1 thousand 500 crores to the affected families. On the contrary, we see that workers, pedestrians and common people are regularly killed in accidents in our country, but they do not get justice for those murders, and most of the time the injured families do not get any compensation or what they get is completely inadequate. Maybe some money for a shroud or burial or money to take the body home. This is the picture of compensation in our country.
The open drains have become a veritable death trap for the citizens of the port city and these unfortunate deaths continue to occur. Such accidents also seem to have failed to awaken the conscience of those responsible for not covering the drains. These wide and deep drains are built very close to the road and during heavy rains it becomes difficult to guess where they are. Due to garbage in drain water, fire brigade personnel cannot carry out rescue operations properly.
The motto of any construction project is 'Safety First', but we rarely see the people responsible for maintaining safety implementing that slogan with devotion. After accidents with open drains, citizens demanded that they be covered with durable slabs. But, no initiative has been taken so far to prevent such tragic incidents.
A city planner shared the same concern with us and told a Daily Star reporter that city drains are kept open and accidents are happening due to sheer negligence on the part of the authorities.
The station master's negligence is responsible for the accident
A terrible train accident occurred at Narsingdi due to a wrong signal by the railway station master on duty. There is no admissible evidence that the train driver failed to signal and caused the accident. In the interest of impartiality and to avoid future mishaps it is necessary to set up a judicial inquiry committee. This opinion was expressed in the preliminary investigation report of the civil investigation committee formed by PABA in the Narsingdi railway accident at the press conference organized by the Environment Bachao Andolan (PABA) yesterday on Saturday. The press conference was presided over by the former VC professor of BUET, the head of the civil investigation committee of PABA. AMM Shafiullah. According to the investigation report, after the Mahanagar Godhuli Express train stops at Narsingdi station line 1 for a break, the Chattla Express train is supposed to go directly through line 2 after getting clearance from Ajmeriganj. But the accident took place when Mahanagar Godhuli and Chattla train entered line 1 at the same time. The Chattla train departing from Chittagong cannot depart from Ajmeriganj without the permission of Narsingdi station. Narsingdi station authority's clearance to leave Ajmeriganj is the main cause of the accident. It was said in the press conference that the investigation report has found evidence that the station master was involved in various commercial activities on the platform in dereliction of duty..
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