One question always swirls through the minds of family members of those killed in the Pilkhana BDR mutiny seven years back and it is why the victims were subjected to such disproportionate level of brutality.
The family members of the slain army officers demand that the government dig out the mastermind who pulled the strings behind those who directly took part in the killing mission.
They also urged the government yesterday to announce a national day in remembrance of the victims and set up a monument for people to pay tributes to them.
They came to the Banani Graveyard to pay tributes to the slain officials of the now-defunct BDR in the morning.
Earlier, representatives of the president, prime minister, state minister for home, the chiefs of the armed forces and the DG of the BGB paid their homage.
Jatiya Party Chairman HM Ershad too paid tribute to those ill-fated army officials.
On the morning of February 25 in 2009, a section of disgruntled soldiers of now-defunct Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), now Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), mutinied at their Pilkhana headquarters, took arms in their hands after looting those breaking the armory.
In the massacre of 33 hours they killed 74 people, including 57 army officers. Armed jawans looted officers’ houses, tortured women and children and took them hostage.
Like others mother of slain Maj Mizanur Rahmna went to the Banani Graveyard to pay homage to her son.
Recalling the day she said Mizanur went out from the officers’ quarters they lived in around 7:45pm. “After some times we came to know that jawans opened fire on the officers. A jawan came to us and said my son was missing.”
With Mizan’s two sons Tahsin Rahman Ramim and Fardin Rahman Sami she took shelter under a cot and waited for her son to come. Sounds of firing were coming nearer. They got Mizanur’s body after the carnage ended.
“Ramim and Sami’s mother died of cancer just nine months after their father was killed. In 2009 Ramim was only 10-year-old and Sami was only four. I am rearing up the orphans,” she said weeping.
“I cannot answer why their father was killed,” she said.
Sonia Zobaida, widow of Maj Md Rafiqul Islam said she was two months into her pregnancy when her husband was killed.
“He is now four-year-old. He sometimes inquires about his father but I have to keep silent or evade the question,” she said.
“It would console us if we could know what my husband’s fault actually was,” she said and demanded the government let them know why the army officers were killed and who were behind that.
BDR director general (DG) Shakil Ahmed and his wife were among the slain. His brother-in-law Ali Akber came to the graveyard to put flowers on their graves. He said they were deprived of the justice in the last six years as the death sentences are not executed yet.
“They will never come back but the execution could at least console us and the victims soul could be in peace,” he said.
Talking with the reporters BGB DG Maj Gen Aziz Ahmed said the government is sincere about the execution of the penalties of the convicts. There will be a result soon.
Attorney General Mahbubey Alam said it would take at least two more years before the higher courts concluded the legal procedures to pave way for the execution of verdicts handed down by a special court in November 2013.
Two cases were filed following the mutiny – one for carnage and another for blast. The special court had handed down death penalty to 152 people and different terms of imprisonment to 423 people in the carnage case.
Almost all of them were BDR soldiers. The convicts had filed appeal to the High Court challenging the verdicts.
Till this month a special High Court bench have heard the confessional statements of 538 accused and the depositions of 14 prosecution witnesses out of 654.
But the blast case is still in its initial phase. In the last one year the special court set up in the capital’s Bakshibazar to hold the trial did not sit for a single day.
Though, the carnage and the blast case started in August 2011 accusing almost the same persons. The blast case was paused to speed up the carnage case.
However, acting chief public prosecutor Mosharraf Hossain Kajol said that they would be able to complete the case proceedings by this year hopefully.
