Lt Col Mukim was forced to issue statement

The fifth prosecution witness to the Pilkhana carnage, Lt Col Abdul Mukim Sarkar, yesterday narrated to a court how BDR rebels forced him to issue a written statement in their favour for publicity outside Pilkhana during the 2009 mutiny and carnage.
He said around evening on February 25, 2009, some jawans of BDR (now renamed Border Guard Bangladesh-BGB) with paper and pen approached him in a quarter guard cell where he was kept confined and tortured in various ways to issue the statement.
"Finding no way out, I wrote down a statement as per their dictation. Later, I learned that the statement had been broadcast on TV channels", Mukim said during his deposition to the Metropolitan Sessions Judge's Court, Dhaka, which is holding the trial into the carnage case.
After the court recorded his statement, defence counsels cross-examined Lt Col Mukim who was the then commanding officer of 25 Rifles Battalion in Panchgarh of BDR. He said he had come to Pilkhana to attend the Darbar.
The defence counsels will continue cross-examining him on November 14 when the court resumes proceedings.
The witness said commotion erupted inside the Darbar hall after sepoys Mayeen and Kajol entered the Darbar hall when the then BDR director general Maj Gen Shakil Ahmed was speaking about the Daal-Bhat programme.
Mukim said he had come out of the Darbar hall after the jawans started leaving the hall through a broken window. He then took shelter in a storeroom, from where the mutineers later caught him and tortured mercilessly, he added.
"At that time, one jawan pointed a pistol at my head and tried to take me away when another said it would not be wise to kill all the officers. Rather some are needed as hostages".
Mukim said he was later confined in the cell where several times jawans came and tried to kill him but failed as a subedar took away the key. The subedar also served him food, he added.
The BDR mutiny and carnage that took place at Pilkhana on February 25-26, 2009 left killed 74 people, including 54 army officers.