Bangladesh has sufficient expertise to carry out probe into building explosion: Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan
The Hindu
Talking to reporters after visiting the explosion site on March 8, Bangladesh Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said members of bomb disposal units and police, army and fire service personnel will conduct the probe into the incident.
Bangladesh’s Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said on March 8 that the country has sufficient expertise to carry out the investigation into the powerful explosion that ripped through a building in Dhaka and killed at least 17 people, and vowed that the findings of the probe will be made public.
At least 17 people were killed and more than 100 others injured on March 7 in the explosion at Old Dhaka’s crowded Gulistan area.
Talking to reporters after visiting the explosion site on March 8, Mr. Khan said members of bomb disposal units and police, army and fire service personnel will conduct the probe into the incident.
“But if the country’s experts fail [to investigate], we will seek assistance from foreign experts,” he said. “The investigation must be impartial. There is no reason for the investigation to be partial,” he was quoted as saying by the Daily Star newspaper. “Everything regarding the investigation will be made public,” Mr. Khan said.
The authorities handed over the bodies of the 17 people who died in the explosion to their relatives on Wednesday, said Inspector Bachchu Mia, in-charge of Dhaka Medical College and Hospital police outpost.
A four-member probe body headed by Lt. Col. Mohammad Tajul Islam Chowdhury, director of Fire Service and Civil Defence (Operation and maintenance), has been formed to look into the cause of the explosion.
The committee has been tasked to submit its report within five working days, said Shahjahan Sikder, an official at the Fire service and Civil Defence headquarters. Among the injured, 11 people have been undergoing treatment at the Sheikh Hasina National Institute of Burn and Plastic Surgery, United News of Bangladesh reported.