BDR carnage hearing may conclude in June

The hearing proceedings of the BDR carnage case might be concluded in June this year as the High Court might need 30 to 40 more workdays for it.

Speaking with The Daily Star, Attorney General Mahbubey Alam yesterday said the HC will need the additional time as the government recently has filed three separate appeals with the HC, seeking tougher punishment for all the accused who were acquitted and given imprisonment of various terms by the lower court.

The government, prior to April 2, had already appealed against the acquittal of 69 out of a total 277 acquitted by the lower court.

The government on April 2 filed the three latest appeals against the 208 accused who were acquitted and the 416 who were given imprisonment of various terms including life imprisonment by the lower court.

The attorney general said the HC is likely to finish the hearing proceedings of the case in June, as this court will go on a three-week vacation from April 14 and resume on May 6.

The three appeals were filed by the government for the highest punishment of the accused in the interest of justice, he added.

Meanwhile, Deputy Attorney General AKM Zahid Sarwar Kazal, who has been dealing with the case, told this correspondent that a special HC bench -- that has already held hearing of death reference and appeals in the BDR case for 363 days -- could have finished the proceedings before April 14, if the three fresh appeals were not filed by the government.

The government has already placed arguments before the HC to uphold the trial court verdict that sentenced 152 convicts to death in the case, the DAG said.

After concluding the hearing, the HC will fix a date for delivering verdict in the biggest ever criminal case in the country's history in terms of number of accused and convicts, or it may keep the case waiting for a verdict, he added.

The death reference and the appeals were filed with the HC months after a Dhaka court announced the verdict on November 5, 2013, nearly five years after the bloody mutiny at the BDR headquarters in Pilkhana of Dhaka.

The trial court gave death sentences to 150 soldiers of the erstwhile Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) and to two civilians, and jailed 160 others for life for their roles and involvement in the carnage.

It also handed down rigorous imprisonment, ranging from three to 10 years, to 256 people, mostly BDR soldiers. The court acquitted the remaining 277 accused, but the government later appealed against the acquittal of 69 of them. A total of 846 people, 823 of them BDR personnel, stood trial in the carnage case.

Seventy-four people, including 57 army officials, were massacred during the BDR mutiny on February 25-26 in 2009 at the Pilkhana headquarters of the paramilitary force, later renamed Border Guard Bangladesh.

The special HC bench comprising Justice Md Shawkat Hossain, Justice Md Abu Zafor Siddique, and Justice Nazrul Islam Talukder started hearing the death reference and 255 appeals in January 2015.

Meanwhile, 17,306 BDR jawans are facing trial in 11 special BDR courts and 60 summary trial courts for mutiny. At least 78 jawans accused in both the carnage and mutiny cases died from mysterious illnesses after the mutiny. The authorities claimed that many of them have died of heart attack in police custody while a few others committed suicide.