'Special Security Forces failed to make BDR team list visited Jamuna Feb 25'Bangladesh

BANGLADESH NEWS

The former director general of Special Security Forces said they could not list all names of a 14-member BDR delegation, who went to Jamuna guesthouse to negotiate with the government on the first day of the mutiny.

The then SSF DG, Major General Mia Mohammad Joynul Abedin, said they could only list the names of 12 BDR (now Border Guard Bangladesh) members as a chaotic situation created there on February 25, 2009.

The former SSF DG was giving his testimony in the BDR carnage case before the Metropolitan Sessions Judges' Court set up temporarily at the Alia Madrasa playground in the capital's Bakshibazar.

He said the prime minister was holding a meeting with the SSF officials at Prime Minister's Office around 9:30am on that day and from where he came to know that a crisis was brewing at BDR’s Hardar Hall.

He reached at Jamuna around 10:15am and found that some senior leaders of ruling Awami League and high officials of security agencies were rushing there, he said.

At one stage, SSF officials came to know about the firing at Darbal Hall, the former SSF official added.

He said the BDR delegation led by then Deputy Assistant Director (DAD) Syed Towhidul Alamd went to Jamuna to negotiate with the government around 3:45pm on that day.

SSF men searched the delegation, asked their names and made a list of their names on a white paper when they were going to the main building at Jamuna, Joynul Abedin said.

But due to indiscipline at Jamuna, SSF men could not list all the names. As there were no name plates on the uniforms of the BDR men, the SSF men had to write down the names which were told by the BDR men that time, he said.

Later, the SSF men found some mistakes in spelling of the names, he said adding that the delegation left Jamuna around 6:00am.

Another SSF official Col Syed Ahmed Ali while giving testimony before the court on Wednesday said the then SSF DG handed over the recorded video CD of that day's and the name list to CID's Special Superintendent of Police Abdul Kahar Akhand, also the investigation officer (IO) of the cases, on December 30, 2009.

A total of 74 people, including 57 army officers, were killed by the mutinous soldiers of defunct BDR on February 25-26, 2009.