Dhaka district administration has enlisted names of 21 missing victims while they had handed over 48 bodies and different hospitals are now preserving 19 bodies of the deceased of Wednesday’s deadly fire at Chawk Bazar in Old Dhaka.
After the rescue operation, the Fire Service and Civil Defence officials informed the media that at least 70 bodies were recovered from the spot but later the government informed that 67 people were killed in the fire.
On Sunday, relatives of the missing victims were seen wondering at hospitals in search of their near and dear ones.
Meanwhile, the government has decided to observe a one-day state mourning on Monday in memory of the victims of Chawk Bazar fire.
Dhaka district additional deputy commissioner Shafiqul Islam told New Age that relatives of 21 missing people have given samples for DNA tests to Criminal Investigation Department till Sunday.
‘The hospitals have been preserving charred bodies of 19 deceased victims of the deadly fire as well as a number of body parts. Only DNA tests will determine the exact number of the deceased,’ he explained.
He, however, could not clarify whether the body parts stored in the mortuaries of the hospitals belonged to the victims whose bodies were handed over to the family members, or that of the yet to be identified victims.
CID special superintendent Rumana Akhter said that they had collected DNA samples from two more relatives who were searching for bodies of the missing victims.
‘As a result, we have collected samples from 38 relatives of the missing victims,’ she said.
Rokhsana Begum, who hailed from Cumilla and is now resident at Kamrangirchar in the capital, came to Dhaka Medical College Hospital with her nine-year old daughter Nasima Akhter Brishti on Sunday in search of her 35-year-old husband Md Ibrahim following her visit to Sir Salimullah
Medical College Hospital mortuary where her search for her husband’s body proved fruitless.
She said that she also could not identify anyone at DMCH mortuary to be her deceased husband since ‘all of them are in a state that defeats any attempt at identifying them.’
‘He (Ibrahim) remains missing since the fire. He used to drive an auto-rickshaw at the old part of Dhaka and frequently travelled to Chawk Bazar. I talked to him on Wednesday at around 4:00pm for the last time,’ she said in a voice soaked in tears.
CID collected DNA samples from her and her daughter Nasima Akhter Brishti, a class-III student of Madhya Islambagh Primary School at Kamrangirchar.
Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha reported that the government had decided to observe a one-day state mourning on Monday in memory of the victims of Chawk Bazar fire.
‘All government, semi-government, autonomous and private institutions and establishments and Bangladesh missions abroad will keep national flag at half-mast,’ BSS quoted a government press release issued on Sunday.
