In the aftermath of last Wednesday’s shocking Border Patrol (BDR) mutiny, Bangladeshi police, rescue teams and firefighters are faced with the grisly task of uncovering and burying the dead. Numbering around 70,000, the BDR’s main role is to secure Bangladesh’s long, porous borders with India and Myanmar.
The truth of the situation still remains unclear, but so far, this is what we know:
- The 33-hour standoff ended Thursday night
- 72 officers are missing (link)
- A total of 76 bodies have been found
- 48 bodies were discovered buried in two graves that each measured about 20 feet by 10
- Bodies being unearthed in manholes, sewers and shallow mass graves show signs of being shot and badly mutilated with bayonets
- PM Hasina promised amnesty on Thursday, but on Friday rescinded amnesty for killers. 200 BDR members have been arrested (link)
- Maj. Gen. Shakil Ahmed, commander of the Bangladesh Rifles border force, and a woman that authorities believed was his wife are among the dead (link)
- The government has ordered a 10-member committee to investigate the mutiny link
The weather, hovering around 30 degrees celsius, is not helping matters:
Bangladesh firefighter Arif Ullah reaches for a handkerchief and retches, overcome by a thick stench of bodies, as he combs a sprawling military compound for victims of a deadly mutiny by border guards…
“It’s hot and it stinks,” Ullah said, as flies buzzed around the flaps of green khaki tents erected over two mass graves into which many bodies had been hurled by the mutineers.
“But we’ve got to keep going. It’s been three days since these guys were buried. They’re badly decomposed.”
Sheikh Mohammad Shahjalal, a hardened veteran of rescue operations…says he is at a loss to explain the savagery of the killings. “It’s beyond comprehension how one human being could have done this to another. They not only shot them dead but some of the bodies were badly mutilated with bayonets.” link
Commenter dudeDAC lives in Dhaka and has been updating us on the situation in the previous post. He also took a series of stunning pics of tanks rolling through a busy downtown intersection.

February 25-26: we were discussing the security threat and the situation when the intersection went into turmoil, people running and simply standing gawking….We heard a rumble, growing, shaking the ground, and when the first tank (one of 10-12) rolled past, we knew the jig was up, it would either end in massive casualties, or quick diffusion.
Have you seen a tank up close? No matter how old or run by whom, it is a frightening sight. Only the naive and stupid think it is fun, or something to laugh about. The tanks can cause severe damage without ever shooting a round. Army is/should be the last resort, and heavy artillery the end of even that option.
More photos, with dudeDAC’s captions and on-the-ground sense of the situation, are below.




The general consensus in the press is that the uprising was the result of long-simmering discontent over wages, working conditions, cushy UN patrol spots and other perks.
dudeDAC disagrees:
This was not, NOT, about pay and amenities as was initially thought, ergo the general amnesty the first day, nor about army being in control of top brass. Also widely believed that these tensions are as old as the BDR have been in existence. This was also NOT about the pieces of the pie of the dhal-bhat program (program where the BDR sold basic staples, i.e. rice, flour, oil, potatoes/onions etc. at less than market prices to the poor) which the army officers failed to share with the jawans for the last 2 years…or whether they were thought of as less than the reg. army, or why they were not able to enjoy the perks of the U.N. missions abroad as the army as well as the police are able to do.
15,000+ regulars do not ALL get pissed off at once!!! There were 60,000 more around the country, they did not kill their officers.
There were several factions, no clear leadership, or purpose, or goal. Survivor testimony of how one group shot at them, while another rescued and hid them, and a third tried to kill them afterwards backs up the lack of coherency in the BDR HQ. There seems to be no purpose or goal other than to cause chaos…to terrorize or undermine the civil society we in Dhaka have managed to enjoy since the elections 2 months ago, after over 2 yrs of pseudo army rule. It is widely believed that these actions speak of an influence intending to cause destabilization in the army, government, and society at large. Who? we shall have to wait and see. An odd truth: we in Dhaka have been safer than Indians in Bombay, given the train bombings and hotel massacre.
[dudeDAC’s captions and commentary lightly edited for clarity. His photos can also be found here, under the moniker stoneßµ∂∂hå.]
Global Voices Online has a great roundup here of twitter messages, Facebook status updates, Flickr streams, videos, and blogs that live-blogged the events of the past few days as they unfolded.



