A planned bloodbath
Complainant tells court in BDR carnage case
The intensity of the February 2009 Pilkhana incident, processions in support of mutineers and helping them escape suggest the bloodbath was pre-planned, complainant of the BDR carnage case told a Dhaka court yesterday.
"It was done to destabilise a 49-day old government," Nabojyoti Khisa, also the first witness, told the makeshift court of Metropolitan Special Judge at Bakshibazar in the capital.
Counsels for the then BDR deputy assistant directors Towhidul Islam, Nasir Uddin, Abdul Jalil and sepoy Selim Reza cross-examined him.
Another accused DAD Mirza Habibur Rahman filed a no-confidence petition against his lawyer and defended himself.
All the accused except the 21 absconding were hauled before the court that witnessed a five-and-a-half hours trial proceedings from 9:40am.
Defence counsels said the complainant, instructed by high-ups, delayed the filing of the case to save the real culprits.
Nabojyoti, who was the then officer-in-charge of Lalbagh Police Station, denied the complaint.
An apparently disturbed court repeatedly reminded defence lawyers to ask the witness relevant questions as some of them were often making statements rather than asking questions.
The court adjourned the proceedings till September 14 and asked the next three witnesses to be present before it on the day.
Fifty-seven army officers were among the 74 people killed in the February 25-26 bloodbath at the headquarters of Bangladesh Rifles (BDR).
Later the government renamed the force as Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB).
A total of 824 BGB jawans and 23 civilians are accused in the case filed on February 28 in 2009.
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