Bangladesh Building Collapse: Factory Owners Arrested

According to the Bangladesh police, three arrests have been made over the garment factory disaster that has killed more than 300 people, as the death toll rises to 324.

Bazlus Samad Adrian and Mahbubur Rahman Tapas are suspected of negligence, forcing their staff to work in the building, ignoring warnings about the cracks.

Deputy Police Chief Shyamal Mukherjee told AFP news agency, ‘‘We’ve arrested Bazlus Samad, the chairman of New Wave Buttons and New Wave Style factories, and Mahmudur Rahaman Tapash, a managing director of one of these plants, after midnight.’’  

Hopes of relatives were raised when 45 more people were rescued from the rubble on Thursday night, and 15 more were pulled out of the debris of the eight-storey building in the commercial suburb of Savar Saturday morning.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina told lawmakers, ‘‘those who are involved, especially the owner who forced the workers to work there, will be punished.’’

He added, ‘‘wherever he is, he will be found and brought to justice.’’

Bangladesh garment industries, the largest in the world, have been widely criticized for its low pay, limited civil rights, and the hazardous working conditions the workers have to contend with.

The disaster has called for new criticism of Western companies who were accused by activists of placing profit before safety by sourcing their products from the country regardless of the deadly disasters plaguing it.

British-owned Primark fashion line and Spanish giant Mango, have admitted that their suppliers were running their business in the collapsed building, and have agreed to work towards reviewing standards.

Wal-Mart and France’s Carrefour are still investigating. Italy’s Benetton has denied having links to the building, even as evidence of their involvement with suppliers was found in documents by activists.

Gareth Price-Jones, Oxfam’s country director for Bangladesh told Reuters, ‘‘these are billion-dollar companies. They have huge amount of power to change the way that building safety is accepted here.’’

Human Rights Watch, having analyzed the tragedy, said that reforms should include a drastic overhaul of the government’s system of labor inspections and an end to government efforts to thwart the right of workers to unionize.

In a statement published on the group’s website, Asia director of HRW Brian Adams said, ‘‘given the long record of worker deaths in factories, this tragedy was sadly predictable.’’