Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Dhaka Update on BDR Mutiny

This is from news agency UNB:

A trouble reportedly broke out at paramilitary Bangladesh Rifles Headquarters in the capital this (Wednesday) morning.

Residents close to the BDR HQs at Peelkhana heard sounds of bullets and mortal shells and also saw smoke coming out of the HQs at around 8:30 am.

The residents and police sources said they have heard that the trouble broke out between BDR jawans and their officers as the jawans put forward their demands.An altercation ensued between the jawans and officials at the BDR Darbar Hall, which led to the gunfight.

Meanwhile, army troops from Dhaka Cantonment moved towards the BDR HQs to put down the trouble. Unconfirmed reports said at least one officer was killed and several others were injured in the trouble that panicked the nearby residents.

1 comment:

  1. I am really worrying ....though I barely recall the 1975 mutiny, as a little kid, I saw how officers and families were scared, some were killed and I saw dead bodies at 55/C Shaheed Moinul Rd (Rupsha Barrack) in Dhaka Cantt, where my family used to live then.

    There could be various reasons for this mutiny, it didnt just break out of nothing but the first part is to be on the safe side, I understand it is at times not possible in such situation though.

    In general social equity is a challenge in country like Bangladesh where rich and powerful pretty much exploit commoners openly. There were lot of concerns by many belong to different walks of life bringing military corrupts to justice but that didn't happen during Fakhruddin-Moinuddin government. Hannan Shah was given hard time because of his BNP affiliation and Altaf Chowduhry landed in the jail on corruption charges. There are many retired army officers as well as some in service are known to heavily corrupt and just a few among them lost their job only as that was "punitive measures" taken against them. But they never went under Dudok investigation and served any kind of jail terms. In general military corrupt personnel are exempt in general no matter what harsh measures have been taken against others. BDR lower ranking who are leading this mutiny mostly belong to deprived part of the society i.e. they are commoners.

    BDR's such deadly outrage reminds establishing social equity and taking military non-military everybody to task who are in fault.

    Again think deeply as isn’t it something lack of social justice and equity in general? The mutiny throws copious thoughts to all of us on our levels and stand on justice as a whole.

    ReplyDelete