On Tuesday, a quarry labourer died along with five children when he went to the Lovachhara river in Sylhet's Kanaighat upazila to bring back his son who had gone there to collect stones. Although his son was saved, the labourer and the five children were crushed to death when a massive chunk of earth dislodged and fell into the river. What makes this incident so tragic is that these deaths were completely preventable, had it not been for the fact that the Lovachhara river was a site of illegal stone extraction, which is why the children went there in the first place. For us, these deaths should be a wake-up call about the dangers that unlawful stone extraction continues to pose across the country.

The story is way too familiar. Illegal stone extraction in the Lovachhara river and its nearby areas is the work of a syndicate of stone lifters whose greed has cost the lives of the quarry labourer and the children. Not to mention the fact that the environmental costs of illegal stone extraction are now beyond measure. Much like previous such incidents, the police in Sylhet too had tried to halt the illegal activity but without success—which is not surprising given the fact that these syndicates wield considerable power deriving from their political affiliations.

We hope that the three-member probe body that has been formed to look into the deaths of the six people is allowed to conduct a fair investigation—free of influence and intimidation. The findings of the committee's report should be taken into serious consideration and implemented at the earliest. Most importantly, the syndicate responsible for all this must be immediately dismantled so that no more such preventable deaths occur.