A civil committee found evidences of negligence against 12 people, including four government officials and owners of four launches over MV Abhijan-10 fire on Sugandha River in Jhalakathi.

Ashish Kumar Dey, chief coordinator of the probe body, came up with the findings at a press conference held at the Dhaka Reporters Unity (DRU) on Saturday.

Apart from this, the first class master Riaz Sikder and second class master Khalilur Rahman and first class driver Masum Billah and second class driver Abul Kalam were also named in the probe report.

The 19-member civil committee formed to probe the MV Abhijan-10 fire on Sugandha River also placed 25 recommendations aiming to prevent such incident. Convener of the committee Abu Naser Khan, also chairman of the save the environment movement, said, “Our aim is to make sure that the government-formed probe committee identifies those involved and punish them. We also want to point out the loopholes in such cases.”

The civil committee recommendations are that not only the owner, master and driver of the launch must be brought to justice, but all those involved in the tragedy have to be punished.

Otherwise, the tendency to neglect one’s duties will increase day by day and accidents will not decrease, said the probe report

Formulate law to compensate the families of the victims and the injured in the accident, to determine the amount of money and to collect the compensation money from the persons responsible for the accident, the report recommends.

Officials concerned of Fire Service and Civil Defence must the vessels in every three months and the authorities of the passenger vessels must have own security guards, the report suggests.