Personnel from Bangladesh’s Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) escort the owner of passenger ferry Pinak-6 Abu Bakar Siddique after his arrest in Dhaka yesterday.
Agencies/Dhaka
A special Bangladesh anti-crime unit yesterday arrested the owner of a ferry that sank in a river killing about 110 people, the first time authorities took such action in a country where shipping accidents with heavy loss of life are common.
The ferry capsized and sank during bad weather on August 4 in a river swelled by monsoon rain about 30km
south of the capital, Dhaka.
The vessel had a capacity for 85 passengers but was crammed with about 250 people returning to work in Dhaka after spending the Eid al-Fitr holiday in their villages.
Authorities had lodged murder charges against the owner, Abu Bakar Siddique, 60, and five other people including the captain, for overloading, operating the ferry Pinak-6 with an expired licence and disregarding the river authority’s instructions not to sail because of bad weather.
Siddique went into hiding but was caught early yesterday at Agrabad in the port city of Chittagong.
“Acting on a tip-off, he was arrested during a raid on a house,” Mufti Mahmud Khan, legal and media director of the interior ministry’s elite anti-crime unit, the Rapid Action Battalion, said.
“Being influenced by greed, the launch owner was operating the vessel ignoring relevant rules,” Khan said.
However, hours after his arrest, Siddique blamed the Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA) officials and lessees of launch ghats (terminals) for the tragedy.
He said it is the BIWTA that controls launch operations 10 days before and after the Eid.
“I am an owner. How can I know the number of passengers getting on my launch? I don’t stay at launch ghat…,” he told journalists at the Rapid Action Battalion headquarters in Dhaka.
Siddique bought the ferry around six years ago from Monirujjaman Khokon of Barisal. Since then, Siddique’s eldest son Mohamed Limon, 27, and nephew Ratul, 23, had been maintaining the vessel, he said.
Siddique, however, claimed that Pinak-6 had all valid documents including the fitness certificate.
Holding the ghat lessees responsible for the incident, Siddique said: “We have to anchor our launches at Bangla Bazar and Kanthalbari ghats after leaving the Kawrakandi terminal. At the ghats, the lessees used to force us for taking passengers beyond the vessels’ capacity.”
“The lessees led by one Yakub Bapari uses to force all ferries to take about 60 to 70 extra passengers. They give us very small amount of money as fare. The lessees beat up the staff if they refuse to take the passengers,” he said.
About 48 bodies were recovered from the river but search operations were called off this week with at least 62 people still missing.
Low-lying Bangladesh, with extensive inland waterways and slack safety standards, has an appalling record of ferry accidents, with casualties at times running into the hundreds.
