BDR MEN’S DEATH REFERENCE HC begins delivering verdict

A three-judge special bench of the High Court Division on Sunday began giving verdict about the convictions handed by a trial court to 568 persons, mostly Bangladesh Rifles soldiers for slaying 57 commanders and 17 others during a mutiny that rocked BDR’s Peelkhana headquarters in the capital in February 2009.
The mutiny occurred during the BDR Week celebrations.
The bench said that the ‘unanimous decisions’ about the verdict of the trial court would be given today.
In his observations, presiding judge, Justice Md Shawkat Hossain on Sunday called it ‘a historic case about pre-planned massacre of 57 brilliant army officers, then serving BDR on deputation, by some ambitious BDR sepoys during their 30-hour mutiny spanning February 25 and 26, 2009.’
He said that the BDR director general and his wife were also brutally killed by the mutineers but their two children, a son and a daughter escaped the slaying as they were at school.
He said that the victims were buried in mass graves only to hide the bodies of the superiors then serving the BDR on deputation from the army.
He said that during the Liberation War only 55 army officers gave life in action. 
Later, Justice Md Abu Zafor Siddique read out parts his 1,000-page observations.
Today, Justice Md Nazrul Islam Talukder is due to read out his observations, before the bench gives its unanimous decisions.
The trial court sentenced 151 BDR men and a civilian to death , life terms to 158 BDR men and two civilians and varying jail terms to 256 others, mostly BDR men.
During the mutiny which began shortly after the BDR director general stood to deliver his speech at the Durbar Hall of the BDR headquarters, the mutineers gunned down their commanders.
The BDR men began the mutiny to realize their demands including not to send army officers on deputation as BDR commanders. 
In 2010, BDR was renamed as Border Guards Bangladesh, in short BGB. 

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net