Officials: Death toll hits 54 in Bangladesh mutiny

[February 27, 2009]  DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) -- Security forces searching the headquarters of a mutinous Bangladeshi border guard unit on Friday discovered the bodies of dozens of officers in "mass graves," raising the death toll to 54, officials said.

The discovery comes a day after the mutinous guards surrendered at the compound in the capital Dhaka, shortly after the government sent tanks in a show of force. The mutineers had been promised amnesty to persuade them to surrender.

However, overnight Thursday, authorities setting up roadblocks around the country detained hundreds of fleeing border guards, many of them disguised in civilian clothes.

After meeting with family members of the dead officers, newly elected Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said the amnesty would not apply to those who carried out the killings. "No one has the right to kill anyone," she said.

It remained unclear whether the amnesty would apply to those guards who tried to flee.

Rescue officials say 32 bodies had been found Friday, bringing the toll to 54. However, officials say dozens of people remain missing and it appeared likely that the death toll would rise further.

"We are digging out dozens of decomposing bodies dumped into mass graves. We are still taking the bodies out, so I can't give you an exact number," Brig. Abu Naim Shahidullah told NTV. All the victims appeared to be officers, he said, and were wearing combat fatigues.

Dozens of families -- particularly those related to senior border guard officers -- still did not know what had happened to their relatives, and they gathered Thursday as authorities continued to retrieve bodies from the main border guard base.

"Let me talk to my father. Where is my father?" cried 10-year-old Mohammad Rakib, standing outside the devastated headquarters of the border agency. Rakib was with his mother looking for his father, Capt. Mohammad Shamim.

Fire official Dilip Kumar Ghosh said two of the bodies -- a man and a woman -- were found at the home of the border force's chief, Maj. Gen. Shakil Ahmed, but that the commander was not one of them.

One officer said earlier that he saw Ahmed killed immediately after the mutiny began Wednesday.

"I was confronted by the soldiers three times, but I have survived," that officer, Lt. Col. Syed Kamruzzaman, told ATN Bangla television station. "Allah has saved me from the face of death."

Authorities would not comment on the chief's whereabouts.

The insurrection was the result of longtime frustrations over pay for the border guards that didn't keep pace with that of the army's -- highlighted by rising food prices in the chronically poor South Asian country as the global economic crisis grows. The guards make about $100 a month.

Their resentment has been heightened by the practice of appointing army officers to head the border guards. The border guards also do not participate in U.N. peacekeeping missions, which bring additional pay.

The army plays a pivotal role in Bangladesh, and only recently allowed the country of 150 million return to civilian rule.

There have been 19 failed coup attempts since the country gained independence from Pakistan in 1971, and two presidents have been killed in military takeovers.

[Associated Press; By FARID HOSSAIN]

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