BDR mutiny: Surviving Army officers recall ordeal

Giving a chilling account of the bloody BDR mutiny, Bangladeshi Army officers have revealed that about 20-25 soldiers instigated others to massacre their superiors, one of whom pretended to be dead by smearing blood of a slain colleague on his face to dodge the killers.

Minutes after the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) soldiers went on a killing spree on Wednesday morning, an officer cheated almost certain death by covering his face with the blood oozing out of an unfortunate colleague's body.

"Mutineers spotted me and Major Maksud inside the washroom of the hall (in the BDR headquarters) where we were hiding," Major Monir was quoted as saying by The Daily Star newspaper.

He said the BDR soldiers started firing at them from outside the washroom and Maksud was hit several times. "As blood gushing out of Maksud sir's body flooded the floor, I took it in my hands, stained my face with it and pretended dead," Monir said.

He said he had cut his forehead with a piece of shattered glass in his desperate bid to make them believe that he was dead. But, he said, the blood coming out of his forehead was not enough, forcing him to take the blood of Major Maksud.

"The men came inside the washroom later and left after seeing the blood-stained bodies believing that both of us had died," the Major said.

"I heard a jawan boasting to another jawan that he had killed 15 officers," he said.

Other survivors say the mutineers fired at their officers, but they too were overcome by fear at the sight of piles of bodies and fled the BDR headquarters in Pilkhana area in the heart of Dhaka.

The survivors revealed that the two-day mutiny that resulted in the killing of 73 officers and four civilians was unleashed by a group of 20 to 25 non-commissioned personnel, who forced others to take up guns and participate in the killings that followed.

"The small group of leaders, all of whom were based in Pilkhana BDR Headquarters, carried out all the mindless killings, most of which took place between 9:00 am and 11:00 am on Wednesday," the survivors were quoted as saying by The Daily Star.

Some of the rebel leaders went to the arms depot and broke open its doors. Then they forced other soldiers present in Pilkhana to take up arms as well, many of whom were there that day from battalions outside Dhaka, on the occasion of the BDR Week, the survivors said.