Dhaka: Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) chief Major
General Mainul Islam on Monday said "foreign enemies" benefited
from the February 25-26 carnage inside the paramilitary force
headquarters even as the President sought the apex court`s
opinion to fix the trial mode of mutineers.
"Bangladesh is not enemy-free in the international arena.
The country has its foes and they gained from the mutiny,"
Islam told the first ever `darbar` or meeting with ordinary
BDR soldiers at Pilkhana headquarters after the massacre.
The headquarters was the scene of the bloody rebellion in
which 57 army officers, including former chief Major General
Shakil Ahmed, were killed.
The BDR chief, however, refrained from naming any enemy
but added "external enemies still exist and we must be aware
of them" referring to the 1971 attack on BDR troops by
Pakistani occupation army.
"Someone must have benefited from the Pilkhana massacre
but BDR suffered the loss," he said as over 2,000 BDR soldiers
joined the meeting at the Darbar Hall, the venue where the
mutiny broke out during an identical darbar on February 25
when rebellious soldiers carried out the carnage, protesting
against "deprivation and lack of service facilities".
The BDR chief`s comments came as President Zillur Rahman
this afternoon sent a reference to the Appellate Division of
the Supreme Court seeking a directive on whether the mutineers
could be tried under military law, specifically the Army Act
of 1952.
State Minister for Law Quamrul Islam said he expected
that the apex court would give the directive regarding the
trial mode before it goes into annual vacation on August 28.
Supreme Court Registrar Mohammad Shawkat Hossain told
reporters that the reference asked "what the (trial) process
should be and if a notice would suffice according to Section 5
of the Army Act to try the mutineers in military court".
The government earlier decided to seek the apex court
direction on the trial mode as it was virtually in a dilemma
if the trial should be held under the Army Act or civil Penal
Code while the BDR Act provided no scope for trial of such
massacres or mutinies in the paramilitary force.
Most experts as well as BDR authorities earlier suggested
the trial be held under the Army Act as both the suspects and
victims belonged to disciplined forces while the existing BDR
Act did not foresee possibilities of any such mutiny or
massacre in the paramilitary force.
But several others, however, feared that the trial under
the Army Act could be challenged in the Supreme Court
eventually lingering the prosecution process and frustrating
the very objective of quick trial of the culprits and proposed
the trail be held under the civil Penal Code.
The BDR Act could be applied in the case as it did not
have any provision for trial of mutiny and the highest
punishment prescribed in the paramilitary law is seven years
of imprisonment for breach of command chain or indiscipline.
Criminal Investigation Department (CID), which was tasked
with the routine police investigation in the case earlier said
over 1,800 BDR soldiers who were stationed at their Pilkhana
headquarters on February 25-26 were arrested for their
suspected involvement in the mutiny and most of them were
quizzed in custody.
Nearly 30 civilians including a former lawmaker of
ex-prime minister Khalida Zia`s Bangladesh Nationalist Party
(BNP) were also arrested so far for their suspected
involvement in the mutiny or support to the rebellion.
The CID officials said their probe into the case has been
progressing satisfactorily while a high-powered government
committee headed by a retired secretary to the government and
a high-level military probe body had already completed their
investigations into the rebellion.
The government committee report said a certain quarter
staged the mutiny using a sense of deprivation of the ordinary
BDR soldiers but only a few BDR men knew about the killing
plot while it bluntly admitted "without hesitation that the
real causes and objectives of the gruesome incident could not
be ascertained clearly and it requires further
investigations".
Bureau Report
