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| Bangladesh |
| 40 sepoys ID'd as ringleaders |
| 2009-03-12 |
| Investigators have found direct involvement of 40 members of Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) so far in the bloody massacre and looting inside the Pilkhana BDR Headquarters during the February 25-26 mutiny. The Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) yesterday handed over 12 out of those 40 border guards to Lalbagh Police Station in connection with the mutiny case filed with the police station, said a top law-enforcing official involved in the investigation of the case wishing anonymity. Meanwhile, Pesh Imam of BDR central mosque Mohammad Siddiqur Rahman, a witness to the carnage in Pilkhana, died at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) yesterday afternoon after he fell sick during interrogation. Those who were found embroiled in the massacre are BDR Subeder Gofran Mallik, Havildar Rezaul Karim, Lance Nayek Gausul Azam, Lance Nayek Yusuf Ali, Sepoys Joyanta Kumar Sarkar, Zamir Ali, Abdul Latif, Sohrab Hossain, Ismail Hossain, Shariful Islam, Rafiqul Islam and Masudur Rahman. The top law-enforcing official said they had recovered firearms and grenades looted from the BDR headquarters from the village homes of Rafiqul, Shariful and Yusuf. He also said at least one of the captured BDR members admitted that they were present at Darbar on February 25 and he himself spread bullets on officers there and two of them confessed to having shot officers to death after chasing them down. One of the arrestees used a vehicle to carry firearms to kill officers at Darbar from armouries inside the BDR headquarters, he said. He added they had also detected the BDR jawan who had killed the wife of slain BDR director General Maj Gen Shakil Ahmed. Rab Director General (DG) Hasan Mahmood Khandker at a press briefing at Rab headquarters, however, said, "After primary investigation it seemed 12 border guards took part in the bloodbath and other offences during the mutiny." When asked about the involvement of Islamist militant outfits and the United Liberation Front of Assam (Ulfa) in the mutiny Rab DG averted the query and said the Islamist militants are now under complete control of the law-enforcement agencies. The arrestees were paraded before the journalists at the press conference but journalists were barred from asking them any questions. |
| Posted by:Fred |