Bangabazar fire: Hijra communities donate Tk 20 lakh to traders

Hijra communities today donated Tk 20 lakh, raised from their members across the country, to the traders of Bangabazar Shopping Complex which was burnt to ashes in a massive fire last week.

A group of around 100 Hijras went to the site of the markets this noon and handed the money to the business leaders.

They said they donated the money to help the affected traders to bounce back from the disaster.

Kashmiri Dipali Hijra, president of Bangladesh Hijra Development Organization, said they accumulated the money saving from their Eid expenses to give it to the fire-affected traders.

"We have been collecting money from them [Bangabazar] traders for the past 40 or 45 years. We are happy that we have stood beside them in their time of crisis", said Dipali.

Another Hijra leader Bakul Haji said they are not buying any new clothes for Eid.

"if fire didn't ravage everything here, we would have collected money from the traders this year too… So we are helping them," Bakul said.

Bakul said they have collected the money from Hijra communities across the country.

Meanwhile, Hijra leader Aleya from Uttara handed over Tk 2 lakh as donation to the traders early this morning.

The devastating fire at the Bangabazar market may have burnt more than Tk 1,000 crore worth of investment into ashes, said the president of the Bangladesh Dokan Malik Samity, the apex trade body of shop owners.

There were around 2,500 shops in the market, one of the popular clothing markets in the capital for retailers and wholesalers. The shop owners had invested heavily to profit from the biggest shopping festival ahead of Eid-ul-Fitr.