The recent blaze in the old district of Dhaka’s Nimtoli has cost tremendous loss to local businesses. It also took more than hundred invaluable lives. Such incidents occur every now and then in the city of Dhaka. Slums, garment industries, shops, buildings all experienced casualty of such fire from time to time. To commemorate the victims of these incidents, London Bishwo Shahitto Kendro (World Literature Centre) recently organised a distinct programme on 25th June 2010 at the Brady Art Centre in East London. The audience made donations to watch the cultural show and drama, which was followed by a participatory discussion programme in light of the Nimtoli fire incident. They shared their valuable suggestions to mitigate any future risks and also made proposal on how to launch the campaign in Bangladesh to fight such horrific incidents in future. The programme commenced with ‘one minute silence’ in honour of the fire victim. The lyrical recitation of rhymes from the golden- old days with folk songs, dance, extracts from Tagore’s ‘Shesher Kobota’ (‘Farewell Song’) complemented by old Bangla songs were performed. Poetries of four Bengali poets of UK whose books were published at the Book Fair in Bangladesh n February 2010 were recited by narrator Rupa Chokroborti. A few selected poems were recited written by Delwar Hossain Monju, Mujib Erom and Milton Rahman. The programme carried on with a comedy drama ‘Bhimbodh’ directed by Shoyaeb Chamak, which was thoroughly enjoyed by the room full of spectators. Lively participation of Mahi, Raju, Khadija, Sadi, Arfu, Hasan, Saklen, Fahmida, Monju, Ayesha, Chamak, Moni, Shourav, Samaha, Milton, Milon, Sheli, Ruhul, Ifti, & Shanta made the programme successful.
The second part of the programme was aimed at the discussion on Fire Regulation in Bangladesh, which took place through the spontaneous participation of the audience. The audience elaborately talked about the Modernisation of the fire extinguishing methods, proper implementation of law and regulation, anti corruption measures and so on in the context of recent accident at Nimtoli. BSK jointly with the voluntary organisation Dristipat will refer the discussed ideas with the appropriate authorities in Bangladesh. The updated news on the progress of this campaign will be available on BSK website www.bsklondon.co.uk and Dristipat’s website www.dristipat.org . This participatory discussion programme was conducted by Shakil, Sheli, Arfu and Samaha. Nesa, Muna, Safina & Mishu also played most important role behind the curtains.
The chair of the BSK London, Shamim Azad thanked the audience for their generous donations and valuable suggestions, Shamim Azad also thanked BSK’s partner organisations and the Bengali Media in the UK. She conveyed special thanks to Clifton Restaurant, Shahin Westcombe OBE, Mridul Das, Ripon Mahmud, S. A Rohel, Md. Monirruzzaman, Sheik Md. Mofiz uz Zaman, Musleh Uddin and also to the Bangla newspapers Surma, Jonomot, Banglapost, Potrika, Notundin, London Bangla, Bangla mail, Bangla Mirror, Channel S, ATN, NTV, Channel I, and Bangla TV for their continuous support to BSK. Moving City, Memsahib and Faith Printing have supported BSK London to organise this special event.