Soldiers dug burrows next to BDR hospital: PW

A prosecution witness (PW) of the BDR carnage case yesterday provided a gruesome narration about the burial of slain army officers by the mutineers on February 26, 2009.
“I had never seen so many corpses in my life. I fall on the ground, losing consciousness,” Sepoy Shahjahan Ahmed said adding when he regained consciousness, he found soldiers digging burrows with spade and shovel next to the BDR hospital.
“I could understand that the soldiers were burrowing into the ground to dump the army officers' bodies,” he said.
Shahjahan told the court that earlier on the day some armed Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) soldiers had forcibly taken him on an ambulance at gunpoint to the hospital. He found two trucks and a pickup van loaded with the bodies of army officers when he reached the hospital.
A Metropolitan Session Judge's Court, set up on the playground of Alia Madrasa at Bakshibazar in the city recorded the depositions of six other defunct BDR (now Border Guard Bangladesh) members and cross-examination by defense counsels.
Shahjahan later left the place on an excuse.
In their depositions, they said they saw armed soldiers opening fire and threatening others to make them participate in the carnage.
So far 92 out of over 1200 prosecution witnesses have given depositions before the court.
The court was adjourned till April 4.
A total of 74 people, including 57 top and mid-ranking army officers, were killed in the two-day mayhem that began on the morning on February 25, 2009.