Behind The Mutiny

Sheikh Hasina and the Army chief are till now acting in tandem indealing with the sequel to the mutiny, but the critics of SheikhHasina are already turning their guns on her as the holder of thedefence portfolio for not reacting promptly to the mutiny in order toput it down and prevent the massacre of a large number of seniorofficers of the Army by the jawans (soldiers) and other junior ranksof the BDR. While the Army chief himself has reiterated his faith inthe civilian leadership, individual senior officers have been criticalof Sheikh Hasina for allegedly not allowing the Army to intervene onFebruary 25 itself after the mutiny broke out and for trying to dealwith the situation through her Home Minister, Sahara Khatun, underwhom the BDR comes.

The constitution of two parallel probe committees--one by the HomeMinister and the other by the Army--speaks of the lack of confidenceof the army in the thoroughness of any probe by the committee set upby the Home Minister. Reports indicate that only those, who did notparticipate in the mutiny, have so far surrendered to the Army or thepolice and that many--if not most--of those who participated in themutiny have managed to go underground. The Army is focussing itsenquiries on those , who held the peace talks with the Home Ministerin a local restaurant in response to his appeal before the talksbroke down. The suspected ring leaders are four Deputy AssistantDirectors (DAD) of the BDR--Touhidul Alam, Nasiruddin Khan, MirzaHabibur Rahman and Abdul Jalil -- sepoy Md Selim and Abdur Rahim,whose rank in the BDR is not known.

The National Standing Committee of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party(BNP) of Begum Khalida Zia,in a statement on February 28,2009,alleged that the 'action and reaction' in the wake of the killings inthe mutiny proved the Government's total failure to resolve thecrisis. "Narrow mentality and controversial steps and statements ofthe Government made the situation more complex," it said and added:"The Government could not take timely steps to prevent the killing ofarmy officers and their family members, and torture on women andchildren.The Prime Minister, who is also the Defence Minister, cannotavoid responsibility for the failure to take effective measures toprotect arms and ammunition, and prevent escape of criminals."

From the details available so far, the following reconstruction ispossible: Maj Gen Shakil Ahmed, who was the Director-General of theBDR,and his wife were extremely unpopular with the jawans of the BDR,who used to accuse them of being corrupt and of misusing ormisappropriating funds meant for providing relief to the families ofpoor jawans.The BDR was observing the BDR Week from February 24,2009,to mark its raising day. About 6300 personnel of the BDR were toparticipate in the various functions organised in this connection.About 3300 of them belonged to BDR battalions stationed in Dhaka. Theremaining came from the various field units. Sheikh Hasina inauguratedthe Week at a function in the Darbar (conference) hall of the BDRheadquarters in their campus at Pilkana on February 24. Somedirectly-recruited junior officers and other ranks of the BDR hadrequested Maj.Gen.Shakil Ahmed to allow them to meet her separatelyafter the inaugural function to express their grievances to her. Heturned down their request. On coming to know of this, she wanted tomeet them. He advised her not to do so on the ground that it mightweaken the discipline. She did not insist on meeting them.

That night, pamphlets criticising Shakil Ahmed, his wife and otherarmy officers circulated in the campus. Either the army officers andmilitary and civilian intelligence agencies were not aware of it orthey ignored it under the impression that this was one of those thingswhich keep happening in the BDR. On February 25, a conference was heldin the Darbar Hall, which was addressed by by Shakil Ahmed. As he wasinteracting with the staff, some persons wearing red head bands andwielding machine guns forced their way into the hall and startedshouting slogans against him and opened fire indiscriminately.

There are two versions as to what happened to him. According to oneversion, he was shot dead inside the darbar hall itself. According tothe other version, he and other Army officers ran out of the hall inpanic and fled to their residences or offices located inside thecampus. Shakil Ahmed himself ran to his house. Some of the mutineerschased him there and killed him and his wife, Some other mutineerschased the other officers to their offices or residences and killedthem.

A number of other jawans and junior officers of the BDR, who initiallydid not participate in the mutiny, took guns from the BDR armoury andjoined the mutineers in their killing spree. Thousands of bullets werefired indiscriminately all over the campus by rampaging personnel ofthe BDR. When Sheikh Hasina heard of the mutiny and the firing, shethought that the mutineers had taken some Army officers hostage. She,therefore, asked her Home Minister to establish contact with themutineers and persuade them to release the hostages. She wasreportedly not aware that the mutineers had started massacring theofficers the moment the mutiny started. It is understood that even theArmy chief was not aware of this.

The moment the mutiny broke out, there was an almost total black-outof communications between the Army officers caught inside the BDRheadquarters and their superiors in the Army headquarters. Before themutiny, the mutineers had disrupted all land line telephones. Allthe army officers caught inside had mobile telephones. Only one ofthem managed to send out a distress message. Others could notcommunicate. It is not known why this was so. Some reports suggestthat the mutineers had seized all mobile telephones from the officersinside. Thus, while the mutineers were able to remain in touch withtheir colleagues all over Bangladesh, the Army officers caught insidewere unable to communicate with anybody. The Army sent an armed groupto the BDR campus to find out what was happening. It also sent twohelicopters to fly over the campus. They all withdrew when themutineers opened fire on them.

Only by the morning of February 26,2009,did the extent of the savagerybecome evident to Sheikh Hasina and the Army. She authorised the Armyto intervene and broadcast a warning message to the mutineers. Thesight of the deployment of Army tanks and heavy artillery around thecampus unnerved the mutineers and they called off the mutiny. It isnot yet known how many of them managed to escape from Dhaka and howmany surrendered.

When the Army entered the campus and started looking for the Armyofficers caught inside, it realised with shock the extent of thesavagery perpetrated by the BDR mutineers. So far, the Army hasrecovered the badly mutilated bodies of 73 army officers and somecivilians including wives and other family members of the killedofficers. It is repored that there were 137 Army officers of variousranks inside the BDR campus when the mutiny broke out. The remainingare missing and feared killed. Their bodies have not yet beenrecovered. Many of the recovered bodies carried bullet as well asbayonet injuries. The bodies of the wives of some of the killedofficers had been disfigured. Neither Pakistan nor Bangladesh, wheremiitary revolts and rule are common, had seen a savagery of this kindsince the British left the sub-continent in 1947.

Brigadier General Mahmud Hossain, Director of Military Intelligence,told a press conference in Dhaka on the night of February 28,2009,that the army was ready to storm the headquarters of the BDR soonafter the mutiny erupted, but heeded Sheikh Hasina's advice at thelast minute to resolve the issue politically."The Prime Ministerdirected that the crisis should be solved politically and it has beenresolved in that manner." He described the incidents as "possiblythe worst massacre of army officers in Bangladesh's history", andadded that the anger among the armed forces was "very natural". Hesaid the army has begun its own probe into the killings of itsofficers during the mutiny even as the investigation ordered by agovernment-constituted committee continues.

One of those missing is Colonel Gulzar Uddin Ahmed, of the RapidAction Battalion (RAB), who had played an active role in the driveagainst the jihadi organisations such as the Jamia'atul MujahideenBangladesh (JMB).Before being promoted as Additional DG of the RAB, hewas in its intelligence wing and had commanded the operation thathad led to the capture and execution of JMB operations commanderSiddiqul Islam alias Bangla Bhai.

The belief in Bangladesh official circles is that the BDR mutiny wastriggered off partly by the unaddressed grievances over the living andservice conditions and partly by anger over the action of the Armychief in carrying out the death sentences awarded to Bangla Bhai andother jihadi leaders in 2007. There has reportedly been a penetrationof the BDR by the Hizbut Tehrir which was very critical of theexecutions which were projected by it as carried out under USpressure.

B. Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai.