Hundreds of Bangladeshi border guards started reporting back to their headquarters yesterday, two days after a bloody mutiny left at least 76 people dead and 72 missing.
The government said it planned to form a special tribunal to try those responsible.
The Home Ministry gave guards across the country a 24-hour ultimatum on Saturday to return to their posts or report to a police station — or face disciplinary action.
The insurrection — in which mostly army officers were killed — apparently erupted over the guards’ long-standing complaints that their pay has not kept pace with the salaries of soldiers in the army.
BODY SEARCH
Firefighters were still searching shallow graves and sewers yesterday at the guards’ headquarters in Dhaka, where the bodies of senior officers were hurriedly dumped by the mutineers.
Workers also scoured nearby areas, including a pond, in an intense search for more victims.
A few hundred guards, some out of uniform and accompanied by family members, waited outside the headquarters as officials checked their credentials.
Some of the returning guards said they were on leave or off duty during the two-day mutiny that ended on Thursday, while others said they fled the compound after the violence started.
“Why should I be afraid of returning to work? I was not involved in the incident. I left to go to my family outside after the shooting began,” said a guard who refused to give his name.
Police said earlier that about 200 fleeing guards were arrested in and around the capital over the weekend, while those still left inside the compound after the mutiny were being kept at a hospital.
TRIBUNAL
The government decided at a late night Cabinet meeting on Saturday to form a special tribunal to try those behind the mutiny, ruling party spokesman Syed Ashraful Islam said.
Islam said initial evidence suggested the guards who rebelled may have had outside assistance. He did not elaborate.
Army spokesman Brigadier General Mahmud Hossain said at least 33 officers survived the carnage, but 76 bodies have been recovered and 72 were still unaccounted for.
Among the dead was Major General Shakil Ahmed, commander of the Bangladesh Rifles border force, and a woman that authorities believed was his wife.
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