Mutineers proved themselves wrong
HEART-rending facts emerged from the maze of the BDR carnage. We were shocked at the horrific trail of death and destruction. It was as if ghastly scenes of a horror film were unfolding on the screen. Our eyes were wide open to the exposes of bloody criminality. We were stunned at the unbelievable ferocity and scale of the barbarism.
By all indications, the brutal massacre appeared pre-planned, and executed with extraordinary secrecy, cunning and precision to which there was no answer. What evil ingenuity! The perpetrators' make-believe trickery made the incident look like a mutiny for the redressing of their demands.
Until the arms surrender, the people mistook it for a protest of sorts. Befooled first, and then, faced with the most unimaginable brutality, they were numbed, dumbfounded. Everybody kept wondering how the killers could keep their nerves ice-cool throughout after having committed mayhem. It defies our comprehension, and beats any stretch of imagination.
Craftily, the killers hid their cruelty, but the hideous brutalities were unveiled in the end. By then it was too late. Before that, it did not cross anybody's mind that a disciplined force, as BDR always was, could have ever become so frenzied, so audacious as to shoot down their officers, en-masse, and that, too, without giving a deadline for meeting their demands.
Their projection of demands was a façade, and their objective different from the "demands." Their hidden design cannot elude even a lay mind, let alone an expert's. Even plane hijackers do not kill the hostages before failing to negotiate a deal. In this case, the killers killed first and then carried out mock negotiations.
They murdered in cold-blooded. We came to know about their brutalities only after everything was over. Nothing but trauma, shock, and grief remained. A sinister design appears to have worked behind the orgy of murder.
Yes, the murderers knew full well that it was not in their officers' powers to fulfill the demands for incremental pay and perks and privileges, and that taking the latter's lives would only negate the propriety of demands rather than help fulfill them. They betrayed with what they claimed they stood for. They marred the glorious heritage of BDR and brought shame to it. Theirs was misnomer of a "mutiny" and they proved to be killers, not mutineers.
It cannot be that they did not realise that the killings would spell doom for them. They killed knowing full well their fate. Had it been for redressing of demands, they would have taken the officers captive. They indeed proved their point wrong by resorting to killing, loot, arson, and torture.
The tragedy has raised a few questions. Was not the blaming of army officers a ploy to tarnish the army's image? While the rebels were inside the compound until arms surrender, who printed and spread leaflets outside, reading "BDR-janata brotherhood live long," and "Fight together against the army"? Who shouted the slogan "BDR-janata-bhai-bhai"? Does it not point to some invisible hands in the carnage?
On whose advice was the midnight surrender bid stalled, and who might have controlled the proceedings from afar? Another mystery is the overnight power blackout. Did it not facilitate the dumping of dead bodies in mass graves and sewage gutters, and their fleeing under cover of darkness?
The mutilating and disposing of dead bodies reminded us of the heartless dumping of the murdered Bengalis during the liberation war. Are not the 1971 barbarities revisiting us a telltale sign of a deep-rooted conspiracy? Has not our focus shifted overnight from the war crimes issue? We hope the probe bodies will get to the bottom without being impeded or distracted.
If all this together exposes the vulnerability of our national security, as many think it does, we must fix it to avert repeat cataclysms in future. Both civil and military analysts agree that it was a naked attack on our national security and sovereignty. It was staged at a time when the BDR command structure could be decimated.
To them, the deeper objective was to draw the army into a reactive, frontal battle with the BDR rebels, which would have destabilised the political situation. Doubtless, it was the new government's baptism of fire. Thank God, that has been overcome by the utmost restraint of the army and the political astuteness of the prime minister.
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