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Members of the investigation committee formed to probe the cause of the fire in Building No. 7 of the Secretariat have inspected the damaged building.
After the inspection on Friday, Brig Gen Muhammad Jahed Kamal – director general of the Department of Fire Service and Civil Defence and member secretary of the panel – said that the investigation committee has started its work.
In response to a question from the media in front of the Secretariat, he said: "We are not in a position to comment on whether the fire was sabotage or an accident. We have come to inspect the site. The matter is under observation. The rest is subject to the investigation."
Nineteen units of the Fire Service rushed to the scene after receiving a report of a fire at the Secretariat at 1:52am on Thursday. Although the fire was brought under control at 8:05am, it was completely extinguished around 11:45am.
The fire, which burnt for about 10 hours, damaged four floors of the building - the 6th, the 7th, the 8th, and the 9th.
The offices of the Ministry of Road Transport and Bridges, Road Transport and Highways Division, Ministry of Finance, Finance Division, Financial Institutions Division, Ministry of Labour and Employment, Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives, Local Government Division, Rural Development and Cooperatives Division, Ministry of Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology, Posts and Telecommunications Division and the Ministry of Youth and Sports are also located in the nine-storey bloc.
The 8th and 9th floors suffered the most damage, with most of the documents there burnt.
Due to the fire, the power supply was cut off for most of the Secretariat buildings throughout the majority of the day on Thursday. Although officials and employees went to the Secretariat, many could not enter their offices or do their work and later left. Practically, the incident brought all of the regular activities at the nerve centre of the Bangladesh administration to a halt.
Speaking at a press conference at the Foreign Service Academy in the capital on Thursday evening, Asif Mahmud Shojib Bhuyain, advisor to the Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives, and Ministry of Youth and Sports, said: “We have started the process of relocating other government departments to places where there is space to keep the programmes running. In the meantime, wherever there is space, the programmes of the ministries can be conducted temporarily for the time being.”
The government formed a high-level committee headed by a senior secretary to find out the cause and source of the fire at the Secretariat. Although a seven-member panel was initially formed, it was later dissolved. A new committee was formed and asked to submit a preliminary report within the next three days and to submit a full report “as soon as possible,” said Syeda Rizwana Hasan, advisor to the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, on Thursday.
The committee is chaired by the senior secretary of the Ministry of Home Affairs. The members are the secretary of housing and public works, the IGP of police, the director general of the Fire Service and Civil Defence (also the member secretary), an explosives expert from the armed forces, and three experts from BUET - a civil engineer, a chemical engineer and an electrical engineer.