A New Nation report on CID investigation of the Peelkhana massacre by Mamunur Rashid dated March 31, 2009 claimed: "The law enforcement agencies found some ruling party leaders' direct conversations with the BDR mutineers over mobile phone after examining the mobile phone call lists of the detained BDR jawans.
The law enforcement agencies identified the names which are Home Minister Sahara Khatun, State Minister for Local Government and Rural Development (LGRD) and Cooperatives Jahangir Kabir Nanak, Awami League leader Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir, Dhamnondi-Hazaribagh MP Barrister Fazlee Noor Taposh and Mirza Aza.
Law enforcement agencies investigated the mobile numbers of more than 35 BDR personnel. At least 10 BDR personnel had talked to the ruling party leaders over mobile phone. And 5 detained BDR personnel confessed to the law enforcement agencies that they held talks with one MP and another former MP about their demands. BDR Jawan Salim reportedly talked to MP Taposh at about 11: 00 am on the day of occurrence.
Investigation officers of the BDR mutiny preferring anonymity told the New Nation that they found names of the AL leaders and BDR personnel after verification from the mobile phone operators."
Incriminating evidence
A follow-up report in the New Nation dated 10 April 2009 revealed: "The investigators tasked with probing the carnage at the Peelkhana BDR headquarters in February are learnt to have pointed their fingers at some rising leaders of Awami League for their possible involvement in the brutal mayhem. Sources said that LGRD state minister Jahangir Kabir Nanak, Jubo League general secretary Mirza Azam MP and former state minister Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir MP had several rounds of talks with renegade BDR members before and after the mutiny which cost the lives of 54 army officers from general to captain. Detained BDR deputy assistant director Towhid reportedly told the investigators these three AL MPs had overt and covert contacts with some of the BDR mutineers."
A blogger responded to the report next day on dhakamails@yahoogroups.com with the comment:
"It possibly is the first time in the history of the world that national government is involved in the massacre of its own military officers. The party is a criminal party."
On April 13, a special correspondent of the vernacular daily Amar Desh filed a graphic report as follows: "On 22 February, three days before the mutiny, a delegation of 15 BDR mutineers along with a civilian associate talked to the Home Minister Sahara Khatun on phone and left a memorandum of their demands with her assistant private secretary. This group of BDR personnel visited three times the Bailey Road residence and also the Imperial Hotel at Farm Gate run by her elder brother, from where recently two hotel residents were arrested by RAB with fake currency notes and counterfeiting equipments. The group had earlier on 13 February met the Awami League Presidium Member Sheikh Selim. The group included Sepoy Moin, Sepoy Kajol and Sepoy Selim. All this has been revealed by mutineers questioned by the Task Force Interrogation Cell.
On February 25, Sepoy Moin and Sepoy Kajol went into the Darbar Hall with arms procured from the security guard of DG, BDR. They were entrusted with the task of shooting the Director General and the Deputy Director General of the BDR respectively. But they got unnerved and failed, while the attending BDR personnel ran out of the Hall.
Killings began at 10:45
At around 10.20 a.m. Sepoy Selim took the megaphone and called on the army officers to "come one by one" out of the hall surrounded by trigger-happy mutineers. Some time after, the DG, the DDG, the sector commanders and other army officers in the Darbar Hall came out in single line. At 10.27 a.m. the RAB Intelligence Branch Director Lt. Col. Majid talked on phone with hostage Colonel Inshad. Both the DG and Col. Inshad were alive at that time, the interrogators found. Surviving army officers from the carnage had earlier confirmed that the killing started some time between 10.45 a.m. and 11 a.m. This belies the claim to journalists by the minister-coordinator of investigations Col. Faruk Khan that Peelkhana massacre was executed already by 10 a.m. that day.
On the s.o.s advice of Col. Gulzar, a RAB team of 300 men reached the Peelkhana gate at 10 a.m. fully prepared to storm the Darbar Hall and free the hostages. They were refused permission to act by official orders from the top. This contradicts the Prime Minister's statement in the parliament that RAB team was delayed by traffic jam and the army would have needed two hours to reach the trouble spot. In fact TV channels showed army units present and battle-ready all around Peelkhana between 11 and 11.30 a.m. that day."
Whither Anis Commission?
None of these reports have been contradicted. The progress of investigation also appears to be going on at snails pace. Particularly, the public enquiry led by former bureaucrat Anisuzzaman Khan appears to be defunct, with the minister-coordinator of the investigative bodies beating about the bush with speculative spins fed to the media. Concerns about a proper enquiry are being voiced by sober analysts in the foreign media as well. Somini Sengupta writing in New York Times on 14 March, 2009 observed: "Two separate investigations are under way: one by the army, another by Mrs. Hasina's government. Whether either will yield credible results or whether their findings will be consistent is unknown. Mrs. Hasina's fate and the stability of the country depend on a satisfactory resolution. .....
Her face-off with the army came into sharp focus three days after the mutiny ended when she confronted an unusually rowdy room of army officers. They berated her for not allowing the army to take charge early on. The screaming match was recorded and put up on YouTube."
Former Indian army chief and former Indian parliamentarian General Shankar RoyChowdhury added insult to injury in his comments in Asian Age on 24 March, published simultaneously from Calcutta, Delhi and London. He extricated India from suspicions about "foreign" involvement in the mutiny, but left no consolation for Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in his analysis, if read between the lines. In a nutshell, he opined: "Three parallel inquiries have been instituted into the events of those fateful 33 hours at the BDR's Pilkhana headquarters, to determine the causes, sequence and responsibility for the outbreak. The first is by the Bangladesh government, the second by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Dhaka police and the third by the Army.
"All indications are that the BDR mutiny was a well-organised pre-planned manoeuvre to traumatise and unbalance Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her fledgling government. Is there a foreign hand? If so, it is highly unlikely to be India.
"Sheikh Hasina is known to be well-disposed towards India, something that would be anathema to many in the political, legislative, administrative and more significantly, the military and intelligence echelons of Bangladesh, where, as in Pakistan, political power frequently flows from the barrel of the gun.
"In one perspective, the war in Bangladesh between India and Pakistan never really ended on December 16, 1971, but continued thereafter as a 'Great Game' between the protagonists to retain Bangladesh within their respective spheres of influence. Round one went to India with the military victory in East Pakistan in 1971, the creation of Bangladesh and the installation of Sheikh Mujib as its founding Prime Minister. He was accepted as India's prot�g�, but his assassination within three years and the signal failure of India's external intelligence services to detect, warn and protect Bangabandhu was viewed in some quarters as a substantial defeat of India's policies and, by implication, a victory for the 'other side'. The violent, tortuous course of politics in Bangladesh thereafter does not lend itself to easy or coherent encapsulation.
"The sepoy mutiny sounds like the opening bell for the next round of the 'Great Game', to destabilise the government and replace the India-friendly government of Ms Hasina. Meanwhile, even as a concerned Bangladesh awaits the outcome of the three inquiries, the "Great Game" continues. But alas, too easily and all too often Bangladesh keeps slipping off New Delhi's radar screen. This must not be allowed to happen now."
A curt response
A curt response to General Chowdhury's hegemonic assertions came from an expatriate Bangladeshi on dahuk@yahoogroup.com as follows: "Sheikh Hasina should extricate herself from the Great Game by letting the wolves of TFI tear apart all suspects behind the massacre. It should make no difference if they are her own cabinet members or parliamentary office-holders, and it should make no difference whether they took the cue from shadowy controls seeking to pressurise Bangladesh Prime Minister warning her not to slip off Delhi's radar. It should make no difference if they were diabolically manipulated by the other side. May Allah infuse Sheikh Hasina with that sagacity and strength of mind when she performs umrah next week."
Interestingly, an article in the Daily Telegraph of Calcutta quoted a book review in a Bangladeshi newspaper advising Bangladesh's new government to "adopt a more cautious attitude to New Delhi since our own history shows that a two-thirds majority in parliament is no guarantee of longevity or permanence in power especially when deeply held views about our national interest are constantly and arrogantly offended". The article concluded: "Expectations that the new government would move quickly on matters that concern India may be premature." Wishful or tendentious statements apart, a most poignant and cautionary analysis of Bangladesh situation has come from Freedom House, New York in its dispatch dated 24 March 09.
Freedom House on Peelkhana
Freedom House was founded in 1941 by prominent Americans concerned with the mounting threats to peace and democracy. Eleanor Roosevelt and Wendell Willkie served as Freedom House's first honorary co-chairpersons. Its dispatch observed:
"The Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) mutiny has a myriad of implications for Bangladesh. Not only is it a security threat to the state, but it reflects the troubled civil-military relations that have plagued the nation since its independence.
"The BDR has a rich history and tradition, .... as a professional force dating back to 1795 when the British East India Company formed the Ramgarh Local Battalion, and as the East Pakistan Rifles it fought with great gallantry in 1971 during the war of independence against Pakistan.
"The BDR's continued status as a paramilitary force has two advantages for the state. As it is controlled by the Ministry of Home Affairs it represents a significant military asset not controlled by the army - already rumours are rife that the mutiny was engineered by Sheikh Hasina to rid the BDR of its army officers, and so create a private army for her. As a separate issue, the BDR's role in guarding Bangladesh's border with India is a highly contentious issue as there are frequent skirmishes between the BDR and India's Border Security Force (BSF). Stories of the BSF's incursions into Bangladesh are ubiquitous in the local press. .... These are sources of serious problems between the two nations, but the BDR's and BSF's statuses as a paramilitary forces provide insulation against involving their respective militaries proper - potentially leading to full-scale war.
"The military has a history of taking control when civilian incompetence begins to severely threaten the state, not always with the disapproval of the populace. Indeed, the January 2007 army-backed takeover from the previous civilian government was met with widespread gratitude by citizens tired of feuding politicians. Under the latter's aegis corruption had risen to crippling levels. .... Essentially, a military that sees civilian governments as breeding corruption to such an extent as to endanger the state is a military over which it is difficult to assert civilian control. Sheikh Hasina is certainly an embodiment of this fear.
"The current crisis, coming so soon after the return of a truly independent civilian government will be incredibly frustrating for the military establishment, whose fears have been confirmed once again. Besides the momentary collapse of Bangladesh's borders, allowing free rein for smugglers, many of the BDR fled once the army were deployed against them, removing heaps of weapons and military grade explosives. They were followed by local criminal groups who likewise looted the various BDR compounds, and it is feared that these weapons will be sold on the black market to Bangladesh's Islamist groups.
Sheikh Hasina's government needs to move quickly to fulfil its duties and gain the public's confidence. Given Bangladesh's staggering array of social, economic, and political challenges, this fluidity regarding the most basic facets of governance bodes poorly for policy coherence going forward."
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