Authorities in Bangladesh yesterday urged mutineers within the country’s splintered military to lay down their arms as a deadline approached to end a violent confrontation between paramilitary soldiers and commanders that left at least 50 people dead, officials said.
“The rebel troopers agreed to surrender their weapons by 2pm,” Sheikh Fazle Noor Tapas, a lawmaker of the ruling Awami League, told reporters after negotiations with the rebel soldiers near their headquarters in central Dhaka.
The paramilitary border troops, known as the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), began surrendering their weapons early yesterday after a 19-hour standoff, but some of the troops refused to lay down their arms, fearing retaliation from the regular army troops, against whom they fought pitched battles on Wednesday.
A fresh round of talks began in the morning to persuade the rebels, who were given general amnesty by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed, to lay down their arms for a peaceful end to the mutiny.
Emergency meetings of the council of ministers and the senior leaders of the Awami League-led ruling alliance reviewed the latest situation, calling upon all sides to show restraint.
Prime Minister Hasina, who was meeting yesterday with the chiefs of the army, navy and the air force, was scheduled to deliver an address to the nation later in the day.
Meanwhile, media reports from outside the capital said BDR troops opened fire in several other camps in the northern districts of Rajshahi and Dinajpur, the southwestern district of Jessore and the southeastern district of Chittagong, but no casualties were reported.
The soldiers’ mutiny began on Wednesday morning at an annual meeting to allow soldier to air their grievances to their officers, sources inside the headquarters said.
But the enlisted men, enraged over a pay dispute and alleged repression and corruption by the commanders of the 67,000-strong force, took the officers hostage.
Several hundred mutineers then took control of artillery pieces and other heavy weapons inside the 2.6km2 compound, located in a densely populated residential area.
“The troopers started surrendering arms to the armory, and we hope the process will be concluded by Thursday morning,” Quamrul Islam, state minister for law, justice and parliamentary affairs, told reporters outside the headquarters around 4am yesterday.
The death toll was expected to be around 50, most of them military officers. But many of the bodies remained inside the complex, Islam said, making an exact casualty count difficult.
The prime minister had announced a general amnesty for the mutinous troops on Wednesday evening as the soldiers agreed to surrender arms and return to their barracks. The announcement came after hours of tense negotiations that included a meeting with a delegation of 14 rebels at the prime minister’s official Jamuna residence.
Several efforts to end the standoff failed as the rebels demanded the removal of some officers and gunfire continued overnight.
The International Red Crescent organization earlier evacuated as many as 20 troopers who had suffered gunshot wounds from inside the compound.
As many as 15,000 soldiers took part in the rebellion. The condition of many senior officers, including BDR chief Major General Shakil Ahmed, was not known.
Earlier, Home Minister Sahara Khatun negotiated the release of officers’ families, who were stranded inside the military complex. State-run Bangladeshi television broadcast the departure of the relatives, mostly women and children, who appeared frightened as they boarded vehicles to whisk them from the scene.
Shopping complexes, schools and major streets around the headquarters remained closed for a second day yesterday amid a heavy security presence by regular army troops and police.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese