BNP leader Nasiruddin Ahmed Pintu and local Awami League leader Torab Ali, among other convicts, were sentenced to life term imprisonment in the country’s largest-ever case of killing at the Pilkhana HQs of now-defunct Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) in February 2009.
The court also fined them Tk 5 lakh each, in default, to suffer five years more in jail.
Third Additional Metropolitan Sessions Judge M Akhtaruzzaman handed down the verdict when 152 convicts were sentenced to death, 463 to different jail terms and 271 others acquitted.
The verdict was delivered at a makeshift court set up at Bakshibazar Alia Madrasah field.
A total of 73 people, including 57 senior army officers, were killed during the bloody mutiny at Pilkhana in the capital on February 25-26, 2009.
In the murder case, about 850 people, including Pintu, Torab Ali and then BDR official Touhidul Islam were made accused.
Source: UNB Connect
Some eminent persons have said that the masterminds behind this savage-most carnage have been kept hidden by the quarters that wanted to kill three birds at one stone. The first thing was to cripple the army in such a way that it remains as a show-piece with its whole spine smashed and its morale liquid. the 2nd was to dismantle and ‘erase’ the BDR as an effectively strong paramilitary force, the 1st line of defense. The 3rd is to put Bangladesh virtually defenseless in the face of any foreign aggression besides creating a general sense of mutual enmity and hatred among the kith and kins of the killed both ‘illegally’ and ‘legally’ (the court verdict) and those sentenced for life and other shorter terms, thereby creating a far-reaching ill-feeling within different sections of people. This BDR carnage was not an ordinary and isolated tragedy. Now sitting at a safe and secure distance, those uncovered conspirators are just smiling under their moustache leaving us in the deep darkness of despair and apprehension.