Bangladeshi people gather as rescuers look for survivors and victims at the site of a building that collapsed Wednesday in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh,Thursday, April 25, 2013. By Thursday, the death toll reached at least 194 people as rescuers continued to search for injured and missing, after a huge section of an eight-story building that housed several garment factories splintered into a pile of concrete. (AP Photo/A.M.Ahad)
Bangladeshi people gather as rescuers look for survivors and victims at the site of a building that collapsed Wednesday in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh,Thursday, April 25, 2013. By Thursday, the death toll reached at least 194 people as rescuers continued to search for injured and missing, after a huge section of an eight-story building that housed several garment factories splintered into a pile of concrete. (AP Photo/A.M.Ahad)
Mohammed Sohel Rana, centre right, the fugitive owner of an illegally-constructed building that collapsed last week in Bangladesh, killing some 377 people, is paraded by Rapid Action Battalion commandoes for the media along with an unidentified alleged accomplice, seen at left, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Sunday, April 28, 2013. Rana was arrested near the land border in Benapole in western Bangladesh, just as he was about to flee into India's West Bengal state, said Jahangir Kabir Nanak, junior minister for local government.(AP Photo)
A man who was trapped in an collapsed eight-story building housing several garment factories is reccued in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh, Wednesday, April 24, 2013. Dozens were killed and many more are feared trapped in the rubble. (AP Photo/ A.M. Ahad)
A Bangladeshi rescue worker searches alone in a building that collapsed Wednesday in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh, Saturday, April 27, 2013. Police in Bangladesh arrested two owners of a garment factory in a shoddily-constructed building that collapsed this week, killing at least 324 people, as protests spread to a second city Saturday with hundreds of people throwing stones and setting fire to vehicles. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer)
Bangladeshi soldiers and rescue workers walk outside the building that collapsed Wednesday in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh, Saturday, April 27, 2013. Police in Bangladesh took six people into custody in connection with the collapse of the shoddily-constructed building that killed at least 348 people, as rescue workers admitted Saturday that voices of survivors are getting weaker after four days of being pinned under the increasingly unstable rubble. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer)
SAVAR, Bangladesh (AP) ? When the cracks in the building appeared early Tuesday afternoon, a stocky man in his early 30s, a feared political operative who a neighbor says dropped out of school in seventh grade, quickly arrived at the scene in this crowded industrial suburb of Bangladesh's capital.
By then, fear had spread through the 3,200 people who worked in the five clothing factories that jammed the upper floors of Rana Plaza, and the handful of shops on the lower ones. Most of the workers had gathered in the street out front. Few wanted to go back in. Inspectors said the eight-story building should be closed until it could be inspected.
But Mohammed Sohel Rana scoffed.
"The building has minor damages," Rana, the building's owner, told gathering reporters. "There is nothing serious."
The next morning, many of the building's shops and a first-floor bank were closed. But the factories' 8 a.m. shift began as usual. About 45 minutes into the shift, the building suddenly collapsed, killing at least 377 people in a fury of falling concrete. It was the worst industrial accident in the history of Bangladesh. Rescuers are still crawling through the rubble, hoping to find anyone who has managed to survive so long, but nearly all the people being carried out now are dead.
During the long search, Rana was missing. Local media reported he left his basement office in Rana Plaza just before the collapse, drove away and dropped from sight. He was arrested Sunday as he tried to cross the border into India.
For years, though, Rana had sat at the nexus of party politics and the powerful $20 billion garment industry that drives the economy of this deeply impoverished nation. This intersection of politics and business, combined with a minimum wage of $9.50 a week that has made Bangladesh the go-to nation for many of the world's largest clothing brands, has made dangerous factory conditions almost normal, experts say.
Government officials, labor activists, manufacturers and retailers all called for improved safety standards after a November garment factory fire in the same suburb, when locked emergency exits trapped hundreds of workers inside and 112 people died. But almost nothing has changed.
"Successive Bangladeshi governments have paid lip service to worker safety but in reality it is only the factory owners who have the ear of policymakers," Brad Adams, the Asia director for Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. "How many factory tragedies will it take before the Bangladeshi government ends its cozy relationship with powerful company owners and prioritizes worker safety?"
Before the collapse, Rana was little known outside of the few blocks of his tiny empire, a grid of poorly paved streets in the crowded industrial suburb of Savar, built up over the past decade or so around hundreds of garment factories.
The son of a local businessman with political connections, Rana became a neighborhood force by working as an organizer for the two political parties that have competed for power for decades in Bangladesh, according to local politicians, as well as someone who grew up near Rana and still lives in the area.
While Rana is currently a leader of the youth group of the ruling Awami League, he has also worked for that party's archrival, the Bangladesh National Party.
"He doesn't belong to any particular political party," said Ashrafuddin Khan Imu, an Awami League leader and longtime Rana rival. "Whatever party is in power, he is there."
In essence, these people say, Rana is a neighborhood political enforcer, regularly ordering thousands of people into the streets for rallies. Most recently, Imu said, he has been working for Awami League lawmaker Talukder Touhid Jang Murad. When Murad was asked about Rana after the collapse, Murad denied any connections. The next day, Dhaka newspapers printed photographs of Murad kissing Rana on the forehead after a successful rally earlier this year.
"He used to intimidate people whenever he needed them, like bringing people out for street marches in support of the lawmaker," said the neighbor, who spoke on condition he not be named, fearing Rana would send his men to beat him up after having been threatened once before. "Neighbors would avoid him ... No one wanted to upset him."
Money came with his political connections, with wealth built upon a string of government-owned properties he acquired at reduced prices, according to local media reports. He built a small apartment building and a small commercial building, where a Bata shoe store is now on the ground floor. In 2010 he built Rana Plaza on land that had once been a swamp. He had a permit to erect a five-story building, but built three additional stories illegally.
Until Wednesday, he lived just a few blocks from Rana Plaza, in a five-story red-brick building he owns at the end of a narrow alley. The ground floor has a hand-painted medieval scene, with an aristocratic woman, or perhaps a bride, being carried by scowling bearers in a covered palanquin. The neighbor says he is married, and has two children. The buildings indicate he is a man of considerable stature locally, but is almost certainly not a member of the country's tiny elite.
After the cracks appeared in the building, witnesses say Rana quickly went to work. On Wednesday morning, he and a number of factory managers ordered nervous workers into the building shortly before the collapse, according to the neighbor, who was present at the scene, and local press reports.
"I was too afraid to go inside the building. But the factory officials assured us they would also be in the factory, so there should not be any problem," said Kohinoor Begum, a factory worker who survived but whose hands were injured.
Cheers went up at the scene of the collapsed building when his arrest was announced over loudspeakers. After Rana disappeared, authorities detained his wife, apparently to convince him to surrender.
What will happen to him? At first glance, the situation doesn't look good: His political allies have abandoned him, Bangladesh's most powerful garment industry association says he ignored their warnings to shut the building and the prime minister called for his arrest.
But in the streets of Savar, many note that while three managers have been arrested in connection with the Tazreen fire, the factory owner remains free.
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Sullivan reported from New Delhi, India. Associated Press writer Julhas Alam in Dhaka contributed to the report.
Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-04-28-Bangladesh-Politics%20and%20Business/id-e7bc63a613f940ad84d7cffad595d329
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