The carnage and massacre committed in the BDR Headquarters in Pilkhana on the 26th February definitely called for an immediate investigation into the matter and suggestion for future course of action regarding its restructuring. The JS Panel constituted for the purpose has already submitted a list of suggestions for its remodelling and restructuring. I appreciate the panel for doing the hard work for preparing the suggestions. But I cannot agree with the suggestion of curtailing the BDR manpower by 30 percent. Decreasing the manpower by 30% will mean a reduction of more than 12,000 personnel. If this suggestion is implemented several problems might arise. Firstly, a huge number of able-bodied persons with modern military training will remain unemployed.
Over and above the creation of competition in the job market, these persons may be used by the terrorist groups to achieve their goals. Secondly, a similar percentage of borderline may remain unprotected due to shortage of manpower. Considering the rise in BSF killings of Bangladeshi civilians, "Nasaka” forays and Indian attempts to build fences in the no mans' land, implementation of such a suggestion could be a disastrous step.