Army officers main targets in BDR mutiny: Colonel

Bangladesh Rifles soldiers, who staged a mutiny in their force's headquarters here virtually turning the capital into a battle zone, apparently carried a grudge against the Army and made officers their main targets in the bloody uprising.

"The guards came armed and apparently hell bent upon a showdown," a senior Army officer who survived the carnage told newsmen.

The officer Colonel Syed M Quamruzzaman, who was present at the 'Darbar' at BDR headquarters, where the bloody mutiny began and had a miraculous escape said "the guards appeared from nowhere and barged into the meeting hurling abuses at us."

"They told us that they were treated shabbily and wanted cheap rations, higher pay, better working conditions and UN postings," he said.

Giving an eyewitness account of the sordid happenings in the main hall, the Colonel said the BDR personnel, some carrying even sub-machine guns said they wanted an end to what they called "army's rule over BDR".

"At gun point, they marched director general major Shakil Ahmed and other senior officers in a single file outside the hall.

Just outside, another batch of the soldiers came running in and opened indiscriminate firing, which felled the DG and other senior officers," the colonel said.

"Bullets were sprayed on me and I was hit in the stomach. But I managed to crawl into a nearby bathroom to hide, but they found me and shot me again," Quamruzzaman said adding he somehow managed to survive.

"It was cold-blooded murder," the Colonel and some other Army survivors recounted.

Most of these officers go on deputation to run the Bangladesh Rifles, which is the country's premier para-military force.

Though like Assam rifles in India, BDR comes under Home Ministry but it is run totally by Army officers, who man all top posts.

Forty Eight hours after the outbreak of the mutiny, the fate of more than 130 army officers taken hostage by border guards, still remains unclear.

An armed force spokesman said only 31 out of 168 officers present in the BDR Headquarters in Pilkhana area at the time of uprising were accounted for.

It is feared that most of these hostages have been killed by the renegade Border guards men and their bodies dumped into
sewerage manholes and could have been washed away.

Army joined the police and fire personnel to scour the sprawling BDR complex located in Pilkhana area in the heart of the capital, for the missing personnel.

It is believed that most of the BDR renegades, who were behind the killings have fled fearing reprisals from the armed forces.

While at BDR headquarters, it was cold-blooded death for the Army officers, however in BDR cantonments in the outlying provinces, the officers who are commanding battalions and higher formations had less tougher time.

Apparently having got the whiff of the fate of their comrades in Dhaka, these officers took the easy way out by fleeing at the first sign of trouble as insurrection in Dhaka spread to other provinces a day later.