Massive fire engulfs slum in Bangladesh, leaves thousands homeless
Dhaka: An massive fire ripped through one of Bangladesh's largest slums here on Wednesday, leaving hundreds of shanties gutted and thousands of people homeless, according to media reports.
The fire broke out on Wednesday morning at the Shialbari Jhilpar Slum in Mirpur's Rupnagar residential area where some 20,000 people lived in around 2,000 shanties.
Fire Service and Civil Defence Director (Operations) Zillur Rahman told reporters that no casualty was reported immediately.
"The cause of the fire will be known after investigation. We will form a four-member probe team and it will be asked to submit its report within 10 days," Rahman was quoted as saying by the Dhaka Tribune.
He said the narrow lanes around the slum and shortage of water had caused difficulty for about 20 fire fighting units in putting out the blaze.
Hundreds of low-income residents of the slum lost their belongings and shelters as the fire burnt them to ashes, Rahman said.
Local lawmaker Elias Uddin Mollah told reporters that some 20,000 people lived in 2,000 shanties in the Shialbari Jhilpar Slum.
Mollah, who was at the scene of the blaze, said the residents affected by the fire will temporarily be lodged in a school nearby.
"No one will be living under the open sky. We will stand by them until their homes become habitable. We will bear all the expenses relating to their food, shelter and clothing," he told bdnews24.com.
"The area shelters hundreds of thousands of poor residents," Officer-in-Charge of Rupnagar Police Station Abul Kalam Azad told The Daily Star newspaper.
According to slum dwellers and fire officials, illegal gas and electricity connections in the slum caused the fire.
There was no natural source of water like pond or canal in the area which resulted in delay in dousing the blaze, an official said.
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Fascism will not be allowed to enter through the back door of vote rigging: CM Siddaramaiah
New Delhi: Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Sunday asserted that fascism would not be allowed to enter India “through the back door of vote rigging” and called upon citizens to collectively defend the country’s democratic foundations.
Speaking after participating in an anti–vote rigging protest organised in New Delhi, Siddaramaiah said the gathering was not merely a political demonstration but a stand to protect Indian democracy. “We have come to the heart of our republic not as Congress workers or voters, but as protectors of Indian democracy,” he said.
Emphasising the importance of the right to vote, Siddaramaiah said it was the most sacred right guaranteed by the Constitution and the very foundation of democracy.
“Through voting, a farmer shapes the future of his children, a worker safeguards his dignity, a youth realises dreams, and a nation expresses its collective will,” he said.
He accused the BJP-led Union government of attempting to undermine this right through what he termed systematic vote rigging, including the alleged misuse of the special revision of electoral rolls. “This power is being stolen repeatedly,” he alleged.
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Warning against authoritarian tendencies, Siddaramaiah said history had shown that dictatorship does not begin with violence but with the misuse of institutions and manipulation of democratic systems.
“Across the world, authoritarian regimes pretend to protect democracy while quietly subverting it. This is what the BJP is doing today,” he charged.
He alleged that the ruling party was controlling institutions, intimidating electoral machinery, distorting voter lists, suppressing voter turnout in opposition strongholds, and misusing money and power. “This is not mere maladministration. Vote rigging is an attack on the very idea of India,” he said.
Siddaramaiah further claimed that governments formed through “stolen votes” could not be considered democratic.
“Such regimes survive through fear, fraud and distortion of the people’s mandate,” he said, adding that vote rigging posed the biggest threat to the republic since Independence.
Praising Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, Siddaramaiah said he had shown exceptional courage in exposing alleged irregularities in voter lists, booth-level manipulation and “systematic, organised vote rigging” across several states, including Karnataka, Haryana and Bihar.
Referring to Karnataka, Siddaramaiah cited Mahadevpura and Aland constituencies as examples highlighted by Gandhi. In Mahadevpura, he said, thousands of allegedly fake and fraudulent voter entries and discrepancies in electoral rolls pointed to a narrow BJP victory. In Aland, he said, attempts were made to remove the names of legitimate voters ahead of the 2023 Assembly elections.
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He noted that a Special Investigation Team (SIT) had recently filed a chargesheet accusing seven persons, including a former BJP MLA and his son, of attempting to delete the names of around 6,000 voters in Aland.
“This is a significant legal step in the fight against vote rigging,” he said.
Siddaramaiah concluded by stating that the fight against vote rigging was rooted in constitutional morality, Ambedkarite thought and the core principle of democracy. “Sovereignty belongs to the people, not to any party, regime or those who seek to steal elections,” he said.
