152 Bangladeshi border guards sentenced to death over mutiny

152 Bangladeshi guards got the death sentence in response to a lethal mutiny of their headquarters which saw several officers killed in 2009.

13:26 06 November 2013

In 2009, former members of the Bangladesh Rifles who were demanding better working conditions, staged a mutiny where they took control of their headquarters and killed scores of people. On Tuesday, 152 of them were sentenced to death in an unprecedented ruling.

After Judge Mohammed Akhturuzzaman pronounced their sentence, some of the border guards were seen crying while others shouted at the judge saying that verdict was unfair. They said: “Allah will deliver justice of this injustice.”

Meanwhile, the judge said: “The slain people were not merely killed. The dead bodies did not get the respect they deserve according to the law.”

The mutiny was staged at an annual conference of the border force. Several guards took their commanders and officers of the Bangladeshi as hostages. Then, they announced a list of demands which included permission to participate in lucrative United Nations peacekeeping missions, better pay, and changes in the force’s command and control structure.

33 hours later, army tanks surrounded the border guards’ headquarters putting an end to the incident as some members of the mutiny fled only to be apprehended later.

Seventy-four people were killed in the uprising, which included 57 top-ranking and mid-ranking army officers. The rest were civilians.