Bangladesh Rifles in revolt; top brass held hostage by rebels

Anisur Rahman

Dhaka, Feb 26 (PTI) A mutiny broke out Wednesday in the
Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) as angry soldiers demanding pay hike
took their senior officers, including the Director General,
hostage after opening fire inside the headquarters of the
border force here, leaving three people dead and 13 wounded.

The dead were a BDR officer, a soldier and a
rickshaw-puller who was felled by stray bullets close to the
BDR headquarters located at Pilkhana area in the heart of the
capital city, official sources said.

Unconfirmed reports put the death toll as high as six.
The revolt in the BDR headquarters and barracks housing 20,000
troops sent shock waves across the impoverished country, which
since independence in 1971 has had a history of political
violence, coups and counter-coups.

The rebellion erupted during a 'Darbar' or meeting
between seniors officers and soldiers, where sources said the
lower-rank troops got agitated alleging that the top brass had
not taken up their grievances relating to pay hike, promotions
and to make the paramilitary force an autonomous body with
Premier Sheikh Hasina when she visited the headquarters a day
earlier.

Intermittent gunfire rang out at the headquarters for
hours as hundreds of army troops and specialised police forces
moved to encircle the area and Air Force helicopters hovered
overhead monitoring the situation.

As army troops and encircled BDR personnel had a
stand-off with the military asking the rebels to lay down arms
and return to their barracks, the revolting soldiers
threatened a showdown.

BDR chief Maj Gen Shakil Ahmed, who was taken hostage by
renegade soldiers, was reported to be unhurt and safe inside
the headquarters of the border force.

"It is a lie that he is injured. We did not hurt him at
all," a mutinying soldier told private ATN Bangla channel from
inside the BDR headquarters.

Reports had suggested earlier that the BDR Director
General was injured in the fighting.

The situation was brought under control when a two-member
delegation of Awami League leaders went inside the BDR
headquarters waving white flags.

They brought a 14-member delegation of the rebelling BDR
personnel for talks with Premier Hasina at her residence. The
rebellion was defused after the BDR personnel's talks with
Hasina.
"They (rebel soldiers) sat in the meeting with the Prime
minister" at her official Jamuna residence after junior local
government Minister Jahangir Kabir Nanok and Whip Mirza Azam
escorted them to the Premier's residence, a prime minister's
office spokesman told PTI.

Television channels earlier showed the two government
leaders going to the BDR headquarters and coming out with 14
rebel soldiers in three civilian cars as army troops kept a
sharp vigil from a safe distance.

Meanwhile, Home Minister Shara Khatun called the
rebellion as the outcome of a "misunderstanding."

"The government by now has become aware of their
problems," she said, adding she gave assurance to the rebel
soldiers that she would consider their "problems" with all
sympathy.

Earlier, the soldiers told reporters from inside the BDR
headquarters that they would not talk to anybody except the
Prime Minister and the Home Minister.

"We will allow the PM and Cabinet members in. We will
tell them our demands. You ask them to come right now. We will
call ceasefire once they are in," a BDR soldier said.
"Everybody knows how miserably we live. We cannot work
independently. We don't have a department of our own."

The BDR soldiers also demanded the army cordon be
withdrawn before any type of talks, saying there were up to
20,000 troops of the paramilitary force inside the
headquarters to fight back any attack.

"We have no problem to surrender our arms. But we won't
turn in ourselves until our demands are met, and this war
will continue," they had said. PTI AR
PMR