Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) Monday arrested two chemical warehouse owners from Bagura and Dhaka city in connection with a case filed over the blaze in old Dhaka's Armanitola Friday. The arrestees are the owners of the warehouse from which the fire broke out and left five people dead. Mostafizur Rahman, owner of Moin and Brothers, and Mohammad Mostafa, owner of RS Enterprise, illegally stored flammable items and chemicals, Rab spokesperson Assistant Superintendent of Police Imran Khan said. Also read: Armanitola building fire: One more victim dies A special team comprising Rab intelligence and Rab-10 Battalion conducted a drive at Nandigram of Bagura at around 4am and arrested Mustafizur. Another team of the elite force carried out a raid in the city's Uttara-10 at around 5am and arrested Mustafa. During preliminary interrogation, both the arrestees said they had been storing chemicals in their warehouses but did not have legal permission to do so. The fire broke out at a chemical storage facility on the ground floor of the six-storey Haji Musa Mansion early Friday, left five people dead and at least 35 wounded. It took 19 firefighters nearly three hours to douse the flames. The case over Friday's fire was filed with Bangshal Police Station on the night of the incident.  Also read: 4 killed, 35 injured in Armanitola building fire Illegal chemical warehouses, unplanned building construction, narrow alleys and having so many people squeezed into too little space make old Dhaka highly vulnerable to fire hazards. In February 2019, a devastating fire at Wahed Mansion in Chawkbazar's Churihatta took away 71 lives; in June 2010, the Nimtoli blaze claimed 124 lives.

The death toll from the massive fire that broke out at a building in Armanitola area of Old Dhaka in the early hours of Friday, climbed to five as another victim succumbed to burn injuries on Sunday.  The deceased was identified as Shafayet, 28. Dr Partha Shankar Paal, resident medical officer of Sheikh Hasina National Institute of Burn And Plastic Surgery, said Shafayet, who has been kept on life support, breathed his last around 8:30 am. Four victims are now undergoing at the ICU of the hospital while the others are being treated at Post Operative Ward, he said. Also read: 4 killed, 35 injured in Armanitola building fire Earlier, four people were killed and 35 others sustained burn injuries after a massive fire broke out at the six-storey building in the Armanitola area of Old Dhaka early Friday. Officials said the fire broke out at Hazi Musa Mansion in Armanitola and soon spread to other portions of the building. And it took 19 fire tenders nearly three hours to douse the flames. Initially, two bodies were recovered by the firefighters but later two more were pulled out from a small room near the stairs of the building, officials said.