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2 held for setting garments factory on fire in B'desh

November 27, 2012 02:19 IST

The Bangladesh police on Monday arrested two factory employees, including a woman, for allegedly setting on fire a readymade garments unit, a day after another inferno killed 112 workers of a nearby textile unit.

Two employees of Debonair factory in Ashulia area of suburban Savar identified as Sumi Begum and Zakir Hussain set ablaze the stockpiled cotton on Sunday, but other employees doused the blaze before it could to other parts of the garment unit, a senior police official told PTI.

"We arrested them ... they tried to set ablaze the Debonair Factory near the Tazrin Fashion, where 112 employees were killed in a major fire incident," the official said.

They were arrested with the help of CCTV footage, which showed the woman setting ablaze the stockpiled cotton, Dhaka district police superintendent Habibur Rahman said.

Sumi, on the instigation of Hossain, set the factory on fire, he said. The duo was later produced before the chief judicial magistrate court in Dhaka, who ordered Hosssain to be remanded in custody for four days for interrogation and sent the woman to jail to face charge.

"A woman worker of the factory admitted before a (judicial) magistrate that she set on fire the unit as instigated by a floor In-charge of Debonair factory," a court official said.

The court official, preferring anonymity, said senior judicial magistrate Wasim Sheikh recorded the confessional statement of Sumi under section 164 of the criminal procedure code.

The police said Sumi was arrested first and in line with her initial statement Hossain was nabbed.

Anisur Rahman in Dhaka