[ALOCHONA] Blame game, unresolved mystery of BDR massacre

Blame game, unresolved mystery of BDR massacre

 

Sadeq Khan

 

An article in the tabloid weekly Blitz dated February 16 reminded us in its online edition: "On 25th February 2010, Bangladesh will observe the first year of the massacre inside the headquarters of Bangladesh Rifles [border security personnel]. More than 56 army officers were brutally murdered, many of the family members of those officers humiliated and raped. Awami League-led grand alliance government has decided to observe this day as 'Pilkhana Killing Day'. But there is no sign of progress in the investigation into this heinous crime.
   

...... The government assigned senior police officer Abdul Kahhar Akhand as the chief investigation officer to investigate the massacre. Being appointed, Mr. Akhand told reporters on numerous occasions that his entire process of investigation would be completed in 'three months'. But, there is no sign of submitting the investigation report, nor there is any hope of early trying the killers and their masterminds of this notorious crime.
   

Initially after the incident, several senior members of the ruling party as well the government continued making series of statements accusing various parties to be involved behind February 25 Pilkhana massacre. Commerce minister Lt. Col. Faruk Khan championed all by making self-contradictory statements on this issue, flinging accusations severally at 'foreign forces', at 'Taliban', and at 'Anti liberation forces'.

 

.... Brigadier-General Mahmud Hossain, Director of Military Intelligence told reporters that, Bangladesh Army was ready to storm the headquarters of the BDR soon after the mutiny erupted, but obeyed Premier Sheikh Hasina's advice at the last minute to resolve the issue politically. Terming it 'possibly the worst massacre of Army officers in Bangladesh's history', Brig Hossain said that anger among the armed forces was very natural. "Exemplary punishment of the culprits will cool our resentment. Our demand is that the investigation into the killings should be quickened and maximum punishment should be given to persons responsible," Brig. Hossain said.
   

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has repeatedly said that no killing shall go unaddressed in Bangladesh. Surely she was pointing to the tragic murder of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Jail killing and attempt on her life. No one will disagree. But, what makes one feel sad is that, the government is perceived to be tactfully trying to put a shroud on the February Massacre case and causing the process to be delayed. Justice delayed is justice denied."
   

On the same day, in a full-page advertisement in the low-cost daily 'Amader Shomoy', the youth wing of the ruling party Awami League squarely accused "militant Jamat-Shibir and their principal patron BNP" of complicity in the massacre of army officers "in the name of Peelkhana BDR revolt on February 25, 2009." The advertisement laid out the pictures in a row, presumably on the dock, of late Field Marshal Ayub Khan and late General Yahya Khan, both former Presidents of Pakistan, (the latter's crackdown on and massacre of unarmed Bangladeshi people led to the liberation war) with the pictures of retired Jamaat-e-Islami chief Golam Azam, present Jamaat Amir Maulana Matiur Rahman Nizami, Jamaat leader Delwar Hossain Sayeedi, Jamaat Secretary General Ali Ahsan Md. Mujahid, late President Ziaur Rahman, Leader of the Opposition Begum Khaleda Zia, and of her son, BNP senior Vice President Tariq Rahman. The advertisement by its contents in effect declared a war of attrition against the above-named "killers and their politics."
   

The grand alliance in the Treasury Benches and the four-party alliance in the Opposition are now engaged in furiously confronting each other in the House, often in un-parliamentary and vengeful exchanges of vilification. Outside, the government is speedily carrying out a cabinet decision to remove the name of "illegitimate President" Ziaur Rahman from all institutions and installations of the state, in pursuit of the High Court observation declaring the fifth Amendment and late president Zia's assumption of power void and illegal. To begin with, Zia International Airport has been renamed Shah Jalal (R) Airport. All books and publications (other than the Constitution which records Zia's broadcast on 27th March in Kalurghat radio about the liberation war having started and Bangladesh declared independent as a factual document) carrying the name of Ziaur Rahman as the proclaimer of independence have been proscribed by another High Court verdict.
   

Simultaneously, a combing operation of police hunt is going on implicating Jamat-Shibir leaders and activists in the murder of two students in Rajshahi and Chittagong and for suspected acts of "destabilisation after the hanging of the killers of Bangabandhu (i.e. freedom fighters of 1971 and convicted coup-leaders of 1975 who ended the BAKSAL regime)." Jamat-Shibir men brought out a protest demonstration on the streets to be beaten back by the police in no time. BNP has also launched an action programme of public protests in the form of countrywide campaigning and roadside rallies. All these things, portents of deep trouble are happening in quick succession. One wonders, in this month of tragic memories and tense feelings, the festivities of the language movement and its achievements may not be marred again by some sinister turn of events by accident or by design.

 

http://www.weeklyholiday.net/front.html#01

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