Ghazi Tire factory looted, fire burning for 15 hours – Bangladesh Diplomat

Miscreants set fire to Gazi Group's tire manufacturing factory at Rupsi in Rupganj upazila of Narayanganj after looting. Saiful Islam, assistant general manager of the factory, said that the incident of setting fire happened at around 9 pm on Sunday.

11 units of the fire service worked since night to put out the fire, but the fire was not brought under control till 12 noon on Monday. No casualty was reported in this incident.

According to factory official Saiful Islam, several hundred people entered the factory in two groups after yesterday afternoon. There was no situation to stop them. After the robbery, the robbers set fire to several buildings of the factory around 9 pm.

He alleged that no police support was received after the attack. He said, 'After the looting started, I informed the law and order forces in various places including the police station. The police did not come. Later a group of army came in front of the factory gate. But they did not stand for more than 10 minutes. Fire service and law enforcement came after setting the fire at night.'

The fire service workers said that there is a lot of plastic raw material and flammable materials in the factory to put out the fire.
Director of Dhaka Division of Fire Service and Civil Defense, Lt. Col. Rezaul Karim said, “Fire service started extinguishing the fire at 11:40 p.m. after receiving the news. The fire quickly spread throughout the factory as there were tires, raw materials for making tires, rubber and plastic inflammable materials in the factory. We have 12 units working. We managed to rescue 14 people trapped in the building. They are not workers of this factory, basically they came to remove the goods of the factory. Whether anyone else is in the building or not, it cannot be said before the fire is extinguished.'

Some witnesses of the incident told the media that miscreants were looting a six-storey building. At that time, the ground floor of the building was set on fire. Some people were on top of the building then. They could not say whether they were able to get out or not.

The owner of Gazi Group is Golam Dastgir Gazi. He is former minister of Awami League and former member of parliament of Narayanganj-1 constituency. He was arrested from Shantinagar area of ​​the capital yesterday morning. Earlier on August 5, after the fall of the Awami League government in the face of the students' uprising, there were attacks, looting and arson in two factories of Gazi Group in Rupsi and Karangop.