MV Abhijan-10 owner, 24 others sued over Jhalakathi launch fire
A case has been filed with Barguna Chief Judicial Magistrate Court against the owner of MV Abhijan-10 Hamjalal Sheikh and 24 others in connection with the deadly fire incident in the launch that left 41 people dead and many more injured.
Advocate Nazmul Islam Nasir, chairman of Baliatoli union parishad of Barguna district, filed the case with the court on Sunday.
Barguna Chief Judicial Magistrate Mohammad Mahbub Alam accepted the case and asked the police station concerned to take the complaint as a "First Information Report (FIR)", said administrative official of the court Akhter Hossain.
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Saifur Rahman Sohag, a lawyer of the plaintiff, said it is clear that there was negligence from the part of the owner and staff of the launch and the court ordered the police station concerned to take the cases as an FIR.
Advocate Nazmul Islam Nasir, chairman of Baliatoli Union of Barguna district, said, "There was clear negligence from the part of the owner and staff of the launch that caused the fire, deaths and damages."
He also demanded immediate arrest of the accused in the case.
Meanwhile, the search drive in the Sugandha River was going on for the 3rd consecutive day on Sunday for tracing those who went missing following a massive fire in the launch on Friday.
The divers from local fire service and Coast Guard resumed the search operation on Saturday morning and it is still continuing, said Khalulur Rahman, officer-in-charge of Sadar police station in Jhalakathi district.
"No new body was recovered from the river till the filing of this report around 11 am," he said.
Besides, the control room, set up by the local administration, listed the names of 25 missing people with information given by their relatives and family members.
Earlier, the bodies of 23 people were buried in a mass graveyard following a namaz-e-janaza in Barguna on Saturday.
The bodies were buried at Potkakhali mass graveyard in Sadar upazila around 12pm.
The blaze broke out at 3am on Friday on the Barguna-bound launch carrying some 800 passengers from Dhaka and it engulfed the entire vessel within 10 minutes.
The death toll from the fire incident climbed to 41 on Saturday night. Besides, over 70 people suffered injuries and many of them are undergoing treatment at different hospitals.
