THE nation observed the BDR Mutiny Day yesterday with due solemnity in tears and payers remembering the martyred officers who lost their lives in bloody carnage as their families saw the overnight rampage before their eyes. It is no doubt the biggest ever heinous act in the country’s military history when the nation witnessed the cold-blooded murder of 74 people including 57 mid-ranking officers of Bangladesh Army who were deputed to BDR to run the paramilitary border force.
The air becomes thick with grief every year on arrival of the day and we joined the families in seeking divine blessing of the fallen heroes while demanding speedy end of the confusion over how it all happened. Not much confidence can be placed on such trial of offenders in an extreme situation when life is considered easy to be dispensed with to show justice.
We joined our voice to demand a neutral investigation into the incident to make clear to the nation as to why the barbarity was resorted to. People are still in the dark as to whether it was the work of some errant BDR soldiers and if so why they revolted and how the entire force was dragged into action. There are also questions whether any outside quarter who wanted to weaken the Border Force and Bangladesh Army had their hands behind the revolt.
Many doubts such open revolt can’t take place without material help and instigation from outside. But the government probe committee has so far failed to identify any such quarter having its involvement in the carnage. The BGB Chief as BDR has been renamed now, in his message yesterday on the 7th Anniversary of the massacre has also ruled out involvement of any foreign quarter leaving the nation in total dark what made the soldiers so confident to strike the officers and kill them.
Many also believed timely dispatching of troops to Peelkhana BDR headquarters could have saved the officers but it did not occur in the face of opposition to such proposal. But it gave the killers enough time to kill the officers over 36 hours carnage and dump their bodies in sewerage lines and unmarked graves. The shelving of the second probe committee’s report headed by a senior army general has also added to confusion.
