Dhaka: Bangladesh opposition leader Khaleda
Zia Sunday charged that the BDR carnage was a "premeditated
conspiracy" to turn the country's borders vulnerable, even as
she blasted the government for not protesting the "frequent
frontier shootouts" by India's BSF.
Addressing a party rally, Zia attacked the Sheikh
Hasina-led government, holding it responsible for the massive
carnage that claimed the lives of 74 soldiers, 57 of them
officers, at BDR's Pilakhna headquarters in 2008.
Zia alleged that the paramilitary Bangladesh Rifles force
was destroyed under a "premeditated conspiracy to turn
Bangladesh borders vulnerable," by staging the February 25-26,
2008 carnage.
"The government could have saved the lives of army
officers by taking quick steps at the initial stage of the
mutiny," Zia told the rally in southwestern Khulna.
The fresh charges revive an old debate on whether a
timely army assault could have prevented the situation from
going out of hand at the paramilitary headquarters.
Zia also blasted her archrival Prime Minister Hasina for
not protesting "frequent frontier shootouts" allegedly by
India's Border Security Force (BSF) that kill innocent
Bangladeshis.
The opposition renewed the allegation as a special BDR
court sentenced 57 border guards of 19 Rifles Battalion to
different terms of rigorous imprisonment for staging the
mutiny at their battalion in southeastern Feni.
Hasina and the government leaders earlier said an army
assault on the rebel BDR soldiers could have caused more
bloodshed as the mutineers had kept hostage the army officers
as well as their family members including minor children
during the mutiny.
A government committee report said a certain quarter of
the force staged the mutiny exploiting a sense of deprivation
of the ordinary BDR soldiers, but only a few BDR men knew
about killing plot.
PTI
First Published: Sunday, April 18, 2010, 20:43