THE demand of families of the victims of the rebellion at the Bangladesh Rifles, now renamed as Border Guard Bangladesh, and its sacked members for a commission to investigate the incident and bring actual perpetrators to justice is completely justified. BDR Kalyan Parishad on November 2 put forth the demand. The victims have also urged the government to reinstate jobs of more than 18,000 sacked members of the force, claiming that they were not actual perpetrators. The victim families have termed the earlier legal proceedings a mockery of justice and said that the toppled Awami League government manipulated the investigation of the rebellion, which left 75 people, including 57 army officers, dead in February 25鈥�26, 2009. Several hundred soldiers that day took up arms against their officers deputed from the army at the Durbar Hall during an annual gathering at the force鈥檚 headquarters in Dhaka. Special courts, meanwhile, sentenced 5,926 soldiers to imprisonment for varying terms on mutiny charges in 57 cases, including 11 in Dhaka, while two criminal cases, one filed over the murders and the other filed under the Explosive Substances Act, are still pending with court.
Victim families claim that the narrative of a dispute over the disparity in benefits between the officers deputed from the army and soldiers is false and such a narrative was spread to divert attention away from the motives behind the massacre. They also claim that prominent political figures of the Awami League, including the deposed prime minister, conspired with a foreign nation to orchestrate the killing. The victim families have also made the demand for an independent commission to re-investigate the carnage many times in the past. During the Awami League regime, the call for justice and an independent investigation allegedly entailed death threats from some Awami League leaders. Two inquiry committees were formed after the carnage, but neither could identify the motive or the masterminds. None of the reports were made public in their entirety and there is an allegation that the report partially released had been revised three times before its publication. Many border guards, under trial and convicted in legal cases, also levelled allegations of custodial torture. The Awami League regime, however, maintained its partisan narrative that the carnage was the result of a dispute over benefits between officers and soldiers.
The contesting narratives centring on the carnage and the allegations of deprivation and denial of justice by the victim families and sacked and under-trial soldiers are too serious to be left uninvestigated. The carnage left a big wound and only a credible investigation followed by justice can heal the wound. The government should, therefore, form an independent commission for a credible investigation. The authorities should also make all previous reports public in their entirety.