BDR mutiny case
329 BDR rebels get jail terms, 7 acquitted
A special court of the Border Guard Bangladesh on Sunday jailed 329 members of the Bangladesh Rifles Sports Board and members of various directorates of the BDR for varying terms ranging from four months to seven years on charge of mutiny in its headquarters in Dhaka in February 2009.
The three-member court acquitted seven other accused of the charges and asked the authorities to reinstate them in their posts in the BDR, now renamed Border Guard Bangladesh, immediately. Of the seven, four had pleaded not guilty.
The Special Court-11, headed by BGB’s director of medical services Brigadier General Nasir Uddin Ahmed, also fined the convicts Tk 100 each.
The court pronounced
the fifty-fifth of 57 verdicts in the BDR mutiny case in a makeshift courtroom at Durbar Hall in the BGB headquarters, where the two-day rebellion had begun on 25 February, 2009.
The court gave the highest punishment of seven years’ jail to 37 under the Bangladesh Rifle Order 1972, imprisoned 19 for six years, 2 for five years and six months, 33 for five years, 4 for four years and six months, 90 for four years, 1 for three years and six months, 93 for three years and 5 for two years and six months.
Two year and six days after the trial had begun, the court on the day also jailed 21 for two years, 5 for one and a half year, 11 for one year, 1 for six months and 7 for four months.
The convicted, of whom 66 were also under trial
in the BDR carnage case, will start serving the jail terms from the day the verdict was given, said the court.
One of the accused, sepoy Abdul Karim, started shouting for reduction of his jail term if he was not acquitted.
The court, however, asked him not to talk and jailed him for seven years.
The court said that all but 26 of the accused had pleaded not guilty.
Two hundred and three people, mostly current BGB members, had made their depositional statements while only 25 defence witnesses testified in the trial.
One of the civil lawyers, Sultan Mahmud, who acted for 25 who were accused ‘indirectly’, told the media that ‘justice has not been ensured by the verdict’.
All the accused were in the dock in shackles, some who pleaded guilty were in uniform and the others in civil dress. The trial of 1,413 more BDR troopers in two more mutiny cases is pending in Dhaka.
The handcuffed bare-foot accused in fetters were led out of the court room in pairs into prison vans soon after the court gave the verdict. Some of them were seen crying.
On 4 August, 2010, the trial against 337 mutineers began at the special court, one of whom, Havildar Md Jalal Uddin Ahmed, was sent to another case.
The BDR troopers were indicted on 14 charges including disobeying the officers, not preventing others from taking part
in the rebellion and not informing higher authorities of the mutiny in which
75 people, including 57 army officers deputed to the then BDR, were killed.
An additional number of army commandos, police and members of the Rapid Action Battalion were deployed in the makeshift court, said officials.
After the failed mutiny, 57 cases were filed against 6,054 BDR troopers, 11 of them in Dhaka, on charge of mutiny that broke out in all but nine units of the then BDR.
Until Sunday, 4,538 BDR troopers, including 2,645 in Dhaka, were sentenced to jail terms ranging from for four months to seven years.
The special courts has acquitted 97 troopers since the first trial of the mutineers began at Rangamati on 24 November, 2009.
More than 600 BDR troopers were released after they served their jail terms.
The prosecutor, Lieutenant Colonel Khandakar Zahirul Alam, in a post-verdict press conference said that 24 civil lawyers had acted for a number of the accused.
At least five of the convicts were national level award-winning players who had been employed in BDR.
-With New Age input
