Feb 26 :The BDR mutineers have surrendered their arms in the Bangladesh Rifles Headquarters in Dhaka after the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s address to the nation in the afternoon. The Home Minister Sahara Khatun said the BDR mutineers have already surrendered their arms and many of them went back to the barracks. She is supervising the surrender operation and release of hostages.
Over 150 hostages, most of them are children and women, were released so far. In her address the Prime Minister urged the jawans to go back to the barracks after surrendering their arms; otherwise she has to take any step in the interest of the country. She urged all the army, paramilitary and police personnel not to heed any any rumour by any groups or individuals.
Earlier, the Prime Minister held an emergency meeting with her cabinet and party senior leaders in the morning to take stock of the situation. Throughout the day lot of twists took place regarding the surrender of the jwaans.
Meanwhile, many tanks and other military vehicles were seen moving towards the main entrance of the Bangladesh Rifles Headquarters from 5.30 p.m. The armored vehicles and army trucks had earlier taken position at Abahani Sports field in the capital’s Dhanmondi residential area. The tension is slowly defusing. But people are perplexed why the military along with tanks moving towards the BDR Headquarters.
The bloody armed mutiny killed at least 50 and injured 50 people. Reports of firing from other BDR sectors, like Khulna, Jossore, Chittagong, Cox’s Bazar, Feni, Rangpur also came in. However there was no report of clashes between the army and BDR jawans so far. BDR jawans started lay down their arms in the early morning in the presence of Home Minister Shara Khatun. But the truce failed. Yesterday the Prime Minister made a truce with the 14 member BDR rebellion group for surrender. She offered general pardon to all the rebellion jawans and assured to implement their other demands in phases.
The violent mutiny was launched by over 5,000 jawans demanding withdrawal of army officials as their controlling authority and other pay benefits. The mutineers seized control and took positions at the five gates of Pilkhana and the Rifles Square market with machine guns, mortars, anti-tank rifles, armored vehicles and rocket launchers. Several thousand civilians, who are family members of the jawans and officers, also remained as hostage, as they could not come out of the area. Thousands of army personnel surrounded the headquarters with cannons, heavy machineguns and rocket launchers.
Air correspondent Arijit Chakraborty reports from Kolkata that Export and import through Petrapole Border Point with Bangladesh have come to a halt. The Kolkata-Dhaka bus services have also been suspended. The West Bengal Chief Minister, Mr. Buddhadev Bhattacharjee reviewed the border situation at a high level meeting in Kolkata. The Inspector General of Border Security Force South Bengal, Mr. Muralidharan informed that force has been put on high alert along Indo-Bangladesh Border to meet any eventualities. The State Government is also keeping close watch on the situation following warning from Centre.