Photo Feature
MURDER NOT TRAGEDY
ISMAIL FERDOUSShe came to find her sister's dead body after 10 days of the Rana Plaza Garments Factory collapse. On Friday May 3, 2013 more than 500 bodies had been recovered.
ASHRAFUL HUDAFlies over a decomposed body recovered on the fourth day from the rubble of Rana Plaza at Savar. The images of the worst garment factory disaster will long be embedded in our minds. The Rana Plaza collapse on April 24, 2013 killed 1,129 young men and women and maimed hundreds of others. The 21 day rescue operation was gruelling, excruciating and often heartbreaking but people - from all walks of life, of all ages, rushed to join the official rescuers. Yet calling this a tragedy is not enough, this was a mass murder caused by sheer negligence, a trend in industries that employ cheap labour. And there have been many such murders in garments factories in the past. Sometimes it has been because of lack of fire exits, narrow staircases that led to stampedes, sometimes it was because the exits were blocked or the gate was locked. Again before Rana Plaza it was because the construction had not followed the building codes. DRIK Gallery's exhibition titled 'Tragedy Noi Hatyakanda' from June 1 to June 5, was a protest against these horrible murders - images documented by photographers, artists and activists.
TUSHIKUR RAHMANAroti, 18, was working on the 6th floor. She was rescued two days after the building collapsed. The rescuer had to cut her right leg to get her out of the building. Her mother and father were also working in the same building. Her father Odhir Das was rescued on the first night of the incident but her mother Titon didn't make it.
SUVRA KANTI DASPoster of one of the 'missing' on the wall of Adhar Chandra School. Name: Ashma Aktar from Khulna.
ABIR ABDULLAHA fireman attempts to extinguish a fire at Kung Keng textile factory. Unsafe working conditions have led to repeated accidents. Export Processing Zone, Dhaka. 26 August 2005.
SAJID HOSSAINMore than 1,100 garment workers died on April 24, 2013 when a eight-storeyed building Rana Plaza collapsed in Savar, in the outskirts of Dhaka. The picture was taken in the early morning of April 29, 2013, from behind the collapsed building.
- TASLIMA AKHTER Parents, after identifying the dead body of their daughter.
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