Bangladesh police arrest three factory managers over blaze

Bangladesh police have arrested three managers of a factory where a blaze killed 110 people, following claims they stopped workers from leaving the plant saying an alarm was just a routine fire drill.

Dhaka police chief Habibur Rahman told reporters on Wednesday the managers were arrested overnight after charges that they told panicked workers of Tazreen Fashion they had nothing to worry about when the fire started on Saturday night.

“All three are mid-level managers of Tazreen. Survivors told us that they did not allow the workers to escape the fire, saying that it was a routine fire drill. There are also allegations that they even padlocked doors,” he said.

Survivors and witnesses told reporters how workers, most of them women, tried to escape the burning factory, which supplied clothes to international brands including Walmart, European chain C&A and the Hong Kong-based Li & Fung company.

Two government inquiries have already been set up to try to establish the cause of the fire, the worst factory blaze to hit Bangladesh’s garment industry, which employs three million and is the mainstay of the economy.

The shell-shocked nation observed a day of national mourning on Tuesday. Green and red Bangladeshi flags flew at half mast alongside black flags on top of government offices and the nation’s 4,500 garment factories.