Nation mourns deaths of Pilkhana carnage today

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The nation mourns today (Saturday) with a heavy heart the deaths of February 25-26, 2009 Pilkhana carnage victims, including 57 army officers who lost their lives while serving the paramilitary frontier force four years ago, reports BSS.
Army bugles will play the last post as ceremonial tributes will be offered to the assassinated army officers on behalf of President Zillur Rahman and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at the Banani Army Graveyard Saturday morning.
Army chief General Md Abdul Mubeen along with navy and air force chiefs will place wreaths on their graves as part of the mourning while the frontier Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), which was called Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) during the carnage, took up elaborate programmes to mark the anniversary.
"The BGB flags will be kept half mast at all units, including our Pilkhana headquarters, while the day-long mourning will begin with Khatme Quran at the central mosque at our headquarters," a BGB spokesman said.
He said milad and doa mahfils at Pilkhana and all units of the frontier force will be held to seek eternal blessings of the departed souls.
Family members of the slain officers will hold a Doa Mahfil Saturday after Asr prayers at Old DOHS Community Centre in Mohakhali.
On this day (February 25) four years ago, several hundred BDR soldiers took up weapons against their superior officers at Darbar Hall coinciding with the "BDR Week" inside the Pilkhana and killed 74 people including the then BDR chief Major General Shakil Ahmed.
The rebel soldiers staged the rebellion at the heart of the capital city on February 25, 2009 but the mutiny quickly spread to sector headquarters and regional units of the frontier force across the country though the casualties took place only at the Pilkhana.
The 36-hour-long mutiny finally ended on the next day when the mutineers were forced to lay down their weapons against the backdrop of growing pressures and fears of military assaults mounted by the government.
The country last year renamed the force as Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) under a massive reconstruction campaign, also changing its laws, uniform, flag and monogram as part of efforts to free the force from the rebellion stigma.
Under the subsequent actions, mutineers were exposed to trial under the BDR Act and over 3,036 rebellions were jailed for periods up to seven years by paramilitary courts while many more await trail on mutiny charges.
But under a government decision in line with a Supreme Court directive following a presidential reference seeking the apex court opinion, the main suspects were eventually exposed to trial under civil Penal Code for killings, lootings, torching and firing gunshots during the carnage at the Sessions Judge's Court.
However, 57 BDR soldiers are still on the run to evade justice.
The BDR Act prescribed only seven years of imprisonment as the highest punishment for ordinary disobedience or breach of command as it apparently could not foresee possibilities of such rebellion in the paramilitary force when it was enacted.
The provision of lenient punishment under the BDR Act required the trial of the main culprits under the country's civil Penal Code while the newly enacted BGB Act, however, prescribed death penalties for such mutiny.
On July 12, 2010, after 16 months of the carnage, CID submitted a charge sheet to the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate's Court in Dhaka accusing 801 troops and 23 civilians, including former BNP lawmaker Nasiruddin Ahmed Pintu and ex-BDR soldier and Awami League leader Torab Ali.
Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of police in July last year formally charged 801 BDR soldiers and 23 civilians, including ex-BDR soldiers and former BNP lawmaker Nasiruddin Ahmed Pintu, after months of investigations into massacre charges.
"The rebel soldiers mowed their officers down in cold blood, using some 2,500 weapons which they looted from the BDR armory," CID's chief investigator Abdul Kahhar Akand said told newsmen after submitting the charge sheet.
Investigators earlier said initially 40 to 50 BDR men started the mutiny while most of the paramilitary soldiers took up weapons 'voluntarily or reluctantly' and carried out the killings, destructions and lootings.
The rebellious soldiers at that time claimed that a sense of 'deprivation' prompted them to stage the mutiny while they demanded the frontier force should be freed from 'military domination'.