Looking back at this day eight years ago
Eight years have passed since the gruesome BDR massacre in 2009. The trial is in the process of conclusion, although several under trial BDR mutineers have died during the process, some due to heart attack.
25 Feb cannot be just any other day of the year. 57 officers, that is 10 more than the number of officers killed during the entire period of our Liberation War, and 17 equally unfortunate others, were killed in the two days of carnage. A lot have been written on how the situation was handled, and in this column over the years since then, we have offered our views on it. While it is easy to be wise after the event, opinions are still divided, and questions are being raised about the issue of storming the BDR headquarters and the cost of doing or not doing so. We know the answer to one. The answer to the other shall never be known. But it is dangerous to delve into hindsight because those who do so, according to a wise man, suffer twice, once in reality and then in retrospect. Therefore, delving into what might have been will inflict more pain on the aggrieved members of the victims' families rather than offer any solace. One might well argue that there were other options that the decision makers might have taken. However, the final choice of option had to be made in the fog of the situation, weighing up the likely consequences of each available option, all of which, one can assume, had been deliberated upon. Therefore, one may critique the final course of action on many counts and discover loopholes. But let it be only said that a good decision is one whose rationale and outcome survive the years that follow the event. We can only leave it to posterity to be the best judge.
It is difficult to reflect on the BDR carnage without being overcome by emotion. And there are very good reasons for that. Many of the officers, most of them in the prime of their career when their life was so brutally cut short, were known to me personally. And I had the proud privilege to be associated with many of them from the very seminal stages of their career while they were being groomed and nurtured into the fine material they eventually became. And almost a decade after the gruesome incident that left 74 people dead, the pain is still raw, particularly for the kith and kin of the those killed, and for whom neither their memory nor the pain of the circumstances of their death has caused, shall ever be erased.
Apart from the pain, the question that continues to haunt us is the mystery behind the killings and the masterminds behind the so called mutiny whose causal relationship (motivation and the action of the BDR mutineers) has not been established satisfactorily.
It is heartening that the trial procedure is in the process of being completed, with the High Court laying down a time fiat to both the defense and prosecution to finish their arguments by 28 Feb. This is perhaps the largest criminal case in the country in terms of the number of accused -- a total of 846 people of which 823 are BDR personnel. And the trial court has sentenced 150 of the accused to death, also the largest in any single case. Whatever may be the verdict of the High Court, and whatever may be in store for those facing the gallows, nothing but finding out the masterminds can assuage the frayed emotions of those that have suffered personal loss in the tragedy. And it was not only the 74 dead, one is also talking about the fact that the country's security was put at great risk in the two fateful days of February 2009. The need to prevent recurrence of such a tragedy, and to stave off any future attempt to target a security element of the government, must be the prime compulsion of the state to go to the bottom of the matter, and there are many a grey area that needs to be clarified. It is remarkable that the enquiry of the committee set up by the government was completed and made public in only three months. But one is constrained to say that the real mystery is yet to be unraveled, a view that is substantiated by two persons who were directly involved with the enquiry process. The member-secretary of the probe committee, Md. Golam Hossain, who was also the additional home secretary said, "We had some limitations. Such type of tasks requires much time, requisite equipment as well as skill. Like CID and RAB, it is not possible for a civil committee to unearth all things." And the then home minister Sahara Khatun said, "Cases have been filed to dig out the real culprits. We will bring the perpetrators to justice after proper investigation."
Certainly, all things were not, and have not, been unearthed, nor have the real culprits been dug out, as yet. We are waiting for both to happen.
The writer is Associate Editor, The Daily Star.