BDR carnage: Committee within 5 working days to ensure justice

Home Affairs Adviser Major General (Retd) Md Jahangir Alam Chowdhury announced that an investigation committee will be formed within the next five working days to ensure justice in the BDR carnage at Pilkhana.

He made the announcement while speaking at a special press conference held at the Secretariat on Tuesday (December 17) morning.

The home affairs adviser said, “The interim government is committed to re-investigating the BDR carnage and ensuring justice. Since the formation of the interim government, the Ministry of Home Affairs has been working on this issue.”

“An investigation committee will be formed within the next five working days to ensure justice in the BDR carnage at Pilkhana. The committee would include retired justices, administrative officials, police officers, and armed forces personnel. The number of the committee member may be 5, 7 or 9 where armed forces personnel will be more in number,” he said.

“As the adviser responsible for the ministry, I have been vocal from the beginning about re-investigating the BDR carnage and ensuring justice, and I remain committed to it. On September 2, I first announced this at the Ministry of Home Affairs, and again on November 4 during a visit to the BGB Headquarters,” Jahangir said.

After the fall of Sheikh Hasina’s government, the interim government announced that it will form a commission to investigate into the BDR carnage.

On 25-26 February 2009, a mutiny in the then Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) left 74 people, including 57 army officers, murdered at its Pilkhana headquarters in the capital.

On 5 November 2013, a Dhaka court handed down death sentences to 150 BDR members and two civilians, and life imprisonment to 160 others in this connection.

On 27 November 2017, the High Court confirmed the death penalty for 139 out of the 152 convicts.

Following the heinous killings of the army officers, the government renamed the mutiny-hit paramilitary force BDR as the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), changing its logo as well as uniform.