ALM Fazlur Rahman, a retired major general and freedom fighter who was a former director general of the erstwhile Bangladesh Rifles, headed the national independent investigation commission on the 2009 carnage in the border force. He tells Mustafizur Rahman in an interview with New Age that the investigation has found a link between the Padua-Roumari border conflict of 2001 and the 2009 carnage
New Age: Is there any genuine reason for the Bangladesh Rifles mutiny? Were there any grievances within the force?
Fazlur Rahman: We have found that conspirators inside and outside were involved. It was not any mutiny out of grievances within. The soldiers had dissatisfaction about work pressure, as in any force there is a shortage of personnel and that also helps improve their skills.
People say that the Dal Bhat Karmasuchi [rice and lentil programme] was one of the factors that the soldiers were very disturbed about. They did not get the money that they asked for and there was a lack of personnel. So, they were denied leave and other things. Such was the situation, but we don’t consider it as a genuine cause. We don’t say that this is the cause, because the Bangladesh Rifles director general, who was the man to fulfil their demand, was killed. They had to have their grievances addressed by the Bangladesh Rifles. Didn’t they? But, we have seen that he was the first man to be killed with his few companions.
Now, for a soldier demanding money, the director general should survive. But, the soldier put his own life in danger by killing the director general and other officers. So, this cannot be a cause for killing the officers. There was dissatisfaction among the soldiers, but this is not the cause and this cannot be the cause. I repeat, the man, who was the director general of the force at that time would have fulfilled their demands.
New Age: So, you think that they used the soldiers. The grievances were exploited.
Fazlur Rahman: Yes, the grievances were exploited. This was magnified in front of the soldiers and they spread this all over the country. Other soldiers found that they were denied remuneration, facilities, leave and other things. This fomented the sentiment of the soldiers in reacting against the officers. The director general, who is the right man to fulfil all the demands, was killed by them. And, by killing the director general and other officers, they sent themselves to the gallows. So, how could this be a genuine cause for killing the officers?
When I was appointed the chairman of the national independent investigation commission on the Bangladesh Rifles carnage, I told my members that the whole country some day will become a Plassey. Our soldiers would be standing, our enemy would come and capture our country and our independence or sovereignty would be lost as in 1757, the nawab of Bengal lost the battle to Robert Clive. So, my request to the government would be to declassify the inquiry report. And under my signature, a letter was sent to the home affairs ministry, saying that it must be made public as soon as possible. It’s a kind of incident that happened at Plassey in 1757, leading to the fall of Bengal to the British. An incident like Plassey happened here in the small place of Pilkhana.
The Rapid Action Battalion was standing and it did not take any action so far. But in the army law of 1952, Section 31 is absolutely clear. Wherever there is a mutiny, undertaken by a soldier, it must be subdued as soon as possible before it spreads to the others. But, we have seen, instead of the army getting inside and taking action, they stood outside. And I’m sure, as a military general, I’d like to tell you that there were no officers commanding them in the Bangladesh Rifles headquarters at that time.
The officers must command the soldiers. The officers were made captive. They were killed. Some officers fled. And, some took shelter. As there was no officer, a small force could have defeated the soldiers very easily if it had entered. That did not happen.
But as per the mandate of the Rapid Action Battalion, there was no compulsion for it to seek permission from any officers to enter and act accordingly. But, it did not.
New Age: The investigation commission has revealed that the then ruling Awami League and a foreign power were directly involved in the carnage. Do you have any concrete proof of such a conclusion?
Fazlur Rahman: Yes, we have. We have studied because it was a military problem to solve militarily. The army was deployed there. The 46 Brigade from the Dhaka cantonment and the Rapid Action Battalion were there. Now, the battalion had 300 people at that time, staying behind Gate 5, which is only 30–40 metres away from the Durbar Hall, where the officers were killed. If they had fired from outside, not entering, shooting inside Pilkhana, the officers could have been rescued.
So, that suggests that there was a conspiracy. And, when General Moeen went to India, he met Pranab Mukherjee, then president of India. Pranab Mukherjee in his The Coalition Years wrote that General Moeen had requested him to convince Sheikh Hasina to keep him in service if Hasina came to power. This is one.
Indian forces were around Bangladesh to the north. It is a written document. Avinash Paliwal, an Indian writer, in a book of his said that the Indian soldiers had been deployed. General Moeen also said in a statement signed by him to the commission: ‘If I had entered Pilkhana, Indian forces would have come into our country and they would not have gone back.’ They would invade. He said that if he had subdued the Pilkhana rebellion, Indian forces would have entered Bangladesh. And, like 1971, they would not go back.
So, this suggests that our neighbour is involved in the conspiracy. And, from February 24 to February 27, 2009, the Dhaka airport immigration reported that about 827 people had arrived in four days. But there was no record of about 57 Indian people’s return to their country. Their whereabouts are unknown. We have their passport numbers and names as well. Then during this time, about 921 people left. But, there is no documentation of how 65 people, all Indians, entered Bangladesh. So, this suggests Indian involvement.
General Moeen U Ahmed [then army chief] had been in Jamuna from 12 noon to 6:00pm on February 25 and the navy chief joined him. And, I don’t know what they were doing. They were just sitting instead of taking any action. The air force could have taken action. It could have bombed with gunships and the soldiers in Pilkhana would have fled. But, they did not take any action.
New Age: Why did they not go for action?
Fazlur Rahman: Why did General Moeen leave his headquarters and sit there? From the political side, it was being said that the army should go back. And prime minister Sheikh Hasina sat with 14 rebellious soldiers and they were pardoned, knowing well that they were killing officers. By 12 noon [February 25], it became clear that they had killed General Shakil and his companions.
How could the prime minister pardon the rebellious soldiers? They were given very good food and all these things. She sat to negotiate with them, where the three chiefs were not called. They were just sitting. Evidently, they were the killers.
New Age: The commission has also revealed that a member of parliament Sheikh Fazle Noor Taposh acted as the chief coordinator in the massacre. How did he do that?
Fazlur Rahman: In the commission report, we also saw that Fazle Noor Taposh, then a member of parliament, acted as the chief coordinator. He had a series of meetings in the central mosque at Pilkhana and the imam of the mosque was killed. The soldiers had a series of meetings with Taposh and Awami League leaders Nanok and Azam. They went to the house of Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim and the rebellious soldier conspirators wanted to meet Shahara Khatun, then home affairs minister. We have no concrete proof whether the soldiers met her, but she gave a green signal. The conspirators from across the border came and they were housed in her [Shahara’s] hotel in Dhaka city, somewhere in the Farmgate area. I forgot the hotel’s name.
Sohel Taj, then state minister for home affairs, was in the United States, celebrating the birthday of his daughter. He did not feel the need for coming back as quickly as possible. We have proof that he had a meeting with RAW agents as well as the rebel soldiers. During the investigation, we stopped him from going abroad, but he applied to the High Court. He was making BDR uniforms. Even before the carnage, nine bundles of cloth for uniforms were taken. BDR uniforms were made and they were given to those who came from outside and were participating in the killing.
New Age: So, what was Sohel Taj’s motive? What was the purpose of making BDR uniforms?
Fazlur Rahman: He was not authorised to do that. He took nine bundles of cloth, specifically for that. He said in his statement that he would not disclose it. But we found other witnesses saying that nine bundles of cloth were taken in Sohel Taj’s name and uniforms were made on the 21st or the 20th [February]. He flew outside.
There were 24 RAW agents there among the rebellious soldiers. He had a meeting with them and Fazlul Karim Selim was also present. We have these documents. So, he cannot deny. We have corroborated, not based on just one person’s testimony. We have corroborated statements of other witnesses.
New Age: It was said time and again that a foreign power was involved in the rebellion in the force. Have you got any direct link of any country or foreign agency here?
Fazlur Rahman: We wanted the information exactly from the 24th to the 27th from the immigration as the massacre happened on two days, February 25 and 26. On the 27th, they left; and, if they had to come, they would have come on the 24th. They would not come many days earlier. So, we see they have no record. This is a document. Absolutely, a document. We have their names and passport numbers. Everything is there.
New Age: Is there any record that they were involved with any particular agency? Any such identity?
Fazlur Rahman: No, we only saw that they had come. No departure record. No other details. Indian passport numbers are there. With your passport number, your name and that address will be there, right? Now, whether you are an apparel factory owner here, whether you have a job here or not, the details were not there. That is not official. So, if we had interrogated them, we would have known the details. But, we didn’t get them.
New Age: Did you approach India as this involves a foreign state?
Fazlur Rahman: We approached India through the foreign ministry but did not get any response. Moreover, an Indian High Commission counsellor named Niraj Srivastava, in 2008, was telling a visa seeker, ‘You have killed our people in Padua. You have done this. You have done that.’ This happened during my time at Padua in Sylhet and at Roumari in Kurigram. But none was killed in Padua. He might have mistakenly mentioned Padua. The incident rather happened at Roumari. ‘It will not go unpunished,’ the counsellor told the visa seeker, one of our witnesses said, adding that he went there for a visa.
And I told you about Avinash Paliwal’s book, it is also there. Then, their deployment was there… We saw on record that some people came, but they did not leave. Some people left, but they did not arrive. They came and left. But, there are no documents.
In the Roumari conflict, more than 400 India’s BSF soldiers were killed after they had entered the Bangladesh territory to invade our land on May 18, 2001 when Sheikh Hasina was the prime minister. At least, three BDR personnel were killed there that time. The Indian authorities received only 18 bodies officially and later accepted it as a defeat. I was then serving as the director general of the then Bangladesh Rifles. In the same year, Burma [Myanmar] encroached on around 2,800 acres of land by raising an embankment on the bordering the River Naf. At least, 600 Burmese soldiers were killed to free the area from their annexation.
In June, I was transferred to the 11th Division as general officer commanding. On March 12, 2002, I was forced to retire from service during Khaleda Zia’s tenure around four and a half years before my normal retirement time as India did not want my stay in the army.
New Age: You have found that deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina, now in India, had given a green signal for the whole incident in which 74 people, including 57 army officers, were killed. Would you share more details in this regard?
Fazlur Rahman: As much as we know, Sheikh Hasina sought help from India. We also have documents that she sought help from India. You know that she sought help from India that time and India deployed troops. For whom did it deploy the troops? In the Jorhat area of Assam and in Tripura, it deployed paratroopers and other forces. Three of its corps were in Kolkata, from where it deployed them.
And General Moeen says that if I had intervened in Pilkhana, Indian forces would have entered Bangladesh and they would not have gone back as it happened in 1971. This means that they would not have gone back like it did in 1971. So, all this speaks of direct Indian involvement in the carnage.
New Age: What motive could be there behind Sheikh Hasina’s green signal?
Fazlur Rahman: I think there are two objectives. One, many say that she had come to power 45 days ago. But, she is not new. Is she new? No. She had the country for many days before this. When she came to Bangladesh in the 1980s, I mean 1981, General Ziaur Rahman was assassinated within about 15 days. So, here you had been in power for 45 days and the BDR rebellion was organised. There could be two reasons. One, those who want that our army should remain weak and our country should be unstable and she helped them. By doing that, she wanted to perpetuate her rule in Bangladesh.
In Bangladesh and when she was overthrown [in August, 2024], you have seen how people reacted. The hatred that people had towards her was expressed. So, all this speaks that she was taking the help of a foreign power, our neighbour. She wanted to remain in power in perpetuity with the support of India. She said that her father liberated this country and this country belongs to her. She said that many times. So, this says that the foreign power was involved with her in the BDR carnage in February 25–26, 2009.
New Age: What was the overall role of the army?
Fazlur Rahman: The army was deployed quickly — as quickly as possible. It came around 11:00am to Pilkhana. But it did not take any action and ultimately, the political decision came from Jamuna. The prime minister took the political decisions and ultimately, the army went back. About three kilometres away, it concentrated near the Abahani playground at Dhanmondi. And, it did not enter. The Rapid Action Battalion did not enter, too.
The military secretary to the president, the military secretary to the prime minister and also the security adviser intervened in the command chain. A parallel command was established. And the Force Brigade Commander could not take any decision. He should have taken a decision because his soldiers were attacked and one of the soldiers was killed first in the firing. When one of the soldiers is killed, the war is declared. But surprisingly, he did not take any action.
New Age: Did you suggest anything in your recommendation about the role of the army?
Fazlur Rahman: We have suggested that reforms should take place in the army to stop such carnage in future. We have suggested reforms for the Border Guard Bangladesh, renamed after the carnage, for the Rapid Action Battalion, for the police and also for the civil administration comprehensively. For the Border Guard Bangladesh, we have suggested promoting a soldier up to the director with training at the Bangladesh Military Academy and the number of such promotions would not exceed 50 per cent of the positions of the officer ranks in the organogram.
