Rana Plaza disaster charge sheet

It appears that progress has been made in the process of bringing those responsible for the Rana Plaza deaths before the court. We are happy to note that the three government officers belonging to the labour ministry, which has refused to give approval for bringing charges against them, have at last been indicted, thanks to the court for using its inherent power to do so. 

However, we must record our surprise and disappointment at the stand of the labour ministry on this issue. In all, fourteen government officers from different ministries were found culpable  in the deaths of more than a thousand garment workers, and all but the labour ministry had given their consent to have their officers charge-sheeted. It has been thirty two months since the disaster, and the main reason for such an inordinate delay in submitting the charge sheet is the reluctance of some of the ministries to accord permission to try their officers, allowing many of them to abscond.

The Rana Plaza disaster has been one of the worst of its kind in this country which has had the most deleterious consequences on the RMG industry, not to speak of the irreparable human loss it caused. And every manner of flouting of the rules and regulations related to the construction of a building and running garment factories was resorted to, with the connivance of the officers of some of the relevant ministries. We thus fail to understand the labour ministry's attempt to protect those officers who have been found complicit and whose actions or inactions have resulted in the worst garment factory disaster in our history. For the sake of justice, the culprits must be brought to book and punished.