The grieving colleagues and friends of a construction worker killed in a job-site accident said goodbye to him Friday at a Brooklyn mosque.
Sirajul Hoque, 58, died Sunday after a horrifying three-story plunge from a scaffolding outside a building on Nostrand Ave. near Linden Blvd. in East Flatbush.
He suffered severe head trauma, police said.
At his funeral Friday at the Bangladesh Muslim Center, community advocates raged about what they said were lax safety conditions that led to his death.
They held up signs calling for better worker-safety procedures as mourners gathered inside the Kensington mosque.
“Even when these employers are held accountable for their negligence on worksites, the max penalty is a $10,000 fine which is another condo for a lot of these employers,” said Christian Fox, who works for the New Immigrant Community Empowerment, an advocacy group.
Officials said Hoque’s fatal fall was because of loose scaffolding.
Fox and other activists at the funeral said the employer should be punished if the conditions at the site were to blame.
Rozenia Mannan, 28, one of Hoque’s cousins, said she believes workers at his construction site were not trained in proper safety protocol.
“There was a rope that another worker was supposed to hold on to and he didn’t. We believe that Hoque’s boss wasn’t maintaining safe conditions for the workers he employed and we will be pressing charges against him,” said Mannan.
“My cousin was such a humble man, I don’t think he has a single enemy in his life,” she added.
Hoque had worked for the same employer for the last 10 years, Mannan said.
She identified the employer as Abdul Kader Mia.
Kader, who usually attends afternoon prayer at the mosque where Hoque’s funeral was held, didn’t speak when the Daily News approached him Friday afternoon.
He declined to comment when asked if he would be compensating Hoque’s family for the worker’s death.
Hoque, an undocumented worker who moved to the U.S. 15 years ago, is survived by a wife and two children, 14 and 16, in Bangladesh.
His earnings also supported his mother and two sisters.
He will be buried in Bangladesh.
