Commission on 2009 BDR mutiny seeks deposed Hasina’s testimony

Dhaka: A commission instituted by Bangladesh’s interim government led by Muhammad Yunus on Saturday asked deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina and 14 others to submit their testimony as part of a re-investigation into the 2009 mutiny in the then Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) frontier force.

“The National Independent Investigation Commission on the 2009 BDR carnage has issued a public notice urging 15 individuals, including former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, to testify as part of its ongoing inquiry,” the state-run BSS news agency said.

The notice stated that “legal measures would be taken against those who will fail to cooperate” adding that the “special notice” was issued expecting to complete the process of recording testimonies of the 15 people, Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS) said.

The 15 people included the then army chief retired general Moeen U Ahmed, his grand successor general Aziz Ahmed and several other former military and police officers and politicians belonging to Hasina’s ousted Awami League (AL) regime.

Hasina fled the country on August 5 last year as a fallout of a student-led mass protests while most others named in the notice are living a normal life abroad or believed to be on the run since the ouster of the past government.

The commission, headed by a former major general, called on the listed individuals to provide their statements as witnesses either in person or online.

“The witnesses are requested to inform the Commission in writing of their proposed schedule within seven days of the publication of the notice, either by phone or e-mail or by letter, as per their convenience,” the notice said.

It added online testimony could as well be arranged through video conference.

The commission notice came a month after it sent a formal letter to Bangladesh’s foreign ministry requesting assistance in identifying the whereabouts of those required to be questioned over the carnage.

The interim government formed the seven-member commission in December last year to reinvestigate the 2009 massacre at the then Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) headquarters, now Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) when 74 people, including 57 military officers serving in the paramilitary border force, were killed.

The massacre on February 25 and 26 that year left the then BDR chief major general Shakil Ahmed dead as well.

The mutiny during the newly elected Awami League government of now deposed premier Hasina prompted authorities to rename the paramilitary force, change its uniform and logo and its regulatory law.

The commission earlier sought information related to the investigation from the public in writing.

“We have been tasked with determining if there was any domestic or foreign conspiracy. We are not singling out any country, person, or organisation, but if our investigation reveals foreign involvement, we will make it known,” commission chairman retired major general ALM Fazlur Rahman recently told a press conference.

He said several individuals fled the country after the July-August students' protest movement and some of them were considered crucial to the BDR mutiny investigation but “if a person is hiding abroad, it becomes difficult to pinpoint their location and communicate with them.”

Rahman, who headed BDR years ahead of the mutiny, said the commission particularly needed to obtain former army chief Moeen U Ahmed’s statement to understand why the military operation failed to tame the mutineers and why so many army officers were killed.

“Reaching out to figures like General Moeen and Sheikh Hasina remains one of our biggest challenges,” he said but added the commission did not specifically requested India's help to return Hasina.

Bangladesh’s incumbent army chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman on February 25 this year warned against attempts of creating confusions afresh over the 2009 mutiny saying there must not be any doubt that it was carried out by none but the paramilitary BDR soldiers.

“Full stop. There are no ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ here,” he said at a commemorative function for slain military officers serving in BDR during the 2009 revolt.

Zaman said “if you bring ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ on the matter, the judicial process which has been going on for so many years, those who are serving in jail for 16 or 17 years or served their terms as convicts, that judicial process will be disrupted.”

“Don’t destroy the judicial process. The BDR members who were handed down the punishment, deserve it,” Zaman told the newly proclaimed 'National Martyred Army Day' to commemorate the lives lost during the mutiny.

There are speculations among certain quarters that some Awami League leaders and foreign powers might have some involvement in the massacre at BDR’s Pilkhana headquarters in Dhaka.

The revolt had shaken the then government, which subsequently formed two investigation commissions, one exclusively led by the military while, after a regular police investigation process, the key suspected perpetrators were exposed to sessions court.

The investigations which found BDR soldiers who were not directly involved in the killings or aiding the officers massacre were tried under relatively lenient BDR Act, which carried no provision for death penalty.

The special sessions court earlier handed down death penalty to 139, life term imprisonment to 185 and different other terms to 228 BDR soldiers. But the death penalties are now pending with the Supreme Court for a mandatory judicial review.