The planning for the mutiny took place at two meetings – one held at Hotel Seagull in Cox’s Bazar on Feb 6, 2009 and the other at Al Falah auditorium in Dhaka on Feb 13, 2009. Both meetings were convened by Salauddin.

A former DG BDR Maj Gen Fazl-ur-Rahman attended the meetings. So did some retired army officers with known BNP and JEI leanings.  Gen Rahman is rabidly anti-India  and  is in synch with JEI. One of his greatest achievements, as his CV tells, was the BDR’s confrontation he had engineered with the Indian border guards, the BSF, in 2001.

Several functionaries of the BNP and JEI also attended the Cox Bazar and Dhaka meetings. And many such meetings Salauddin held in the run up to the D-day to fine tune the action plan for implementing the blue print he had received.   ISI authored the blue print. The objective was limited: undermine the Awami League government and project Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina as ineffective.

One decision taken by Salauddin and his friends was that BDR personnel should go about their plan cautiously. Enough ground should be prepared to show that the mutiny was over a just cause, they resolved.

Accordingly, BDR personnel were to place a charter of demands before the Prime Minister on Feb 24. In case she refused to take cognizance of the demands, the BDR soldiers were to open fire and kill her the very day, if possible on the spot, as an expression of their anger.  

Discontent is not something new to the BDR’s lower ranks.  There had been mutinies of varying intensity by the lower tiers in the past. SQC, his ‘masters’ in ISI and  companions in BNP and the JEI had sought to exploit the  mood of bitterness or  discontent whatever one may call that pervades the border guards and present it as mutiny to the world.

Towards this end, SQC pumped in huge funds to induce and motivate the BDR personnel, ensure their participation in the mutiny and keep their morale high. Funds were also organized by Pervez Ispahani, Pak President’s Special Envoy who undertook a visit to Dhaka two days ahead of the mutiny. The investigating agencies have come across evidence that Tk 6.5 Crore was withdrawn from Al Arafah Bank, Motijheel branch a couple of days ahead of the mutiny.

Many BDR rebels (arrested from the spot) were carrying around Tk 3 lakh in cash. All the arrested key conspirators confessed to the investigators that they were paid handsome amounts.

Gen Fazl-Ur- Rahman received Tk 40 crore. He in turn paid Tk 5 crore to each of the four Deputy Assistant Directors (DADs) including Tauhid (who was at the forefront of the mutiny). Key players at the level of soldier received Tk 1 crore each as advance,

A meeting was held at Maruf Foundation auditorium in Dhaka on Feb 25 after outbreak of the mutiny.  Mominul Islam Patwari, JEI central executive committee member and president of Board of Directors of Islami Bank, Zahid-ur-Rahman, President of JEI student front, Islami Chhatra Shibir (ICS) and Secretaries of JEI and ICS units (Thana level) of Dhaka city attended the meeting for stock taking.

The meeting decided to extend all possible support to the BDR rebels to ensure their safe exit from the BDR HQ at Pilkhana. Instructions were sent to this effect to all JEI and ICS cadres across the country on telephone. Thereafter on Feb 26, students of Dhaka Aliya Madrassa and ICS cadres of Dhaka University organized logistics to ensure safe escape of the BDR rebels.  Boats were organized on Buri Ganga River with prefixed banners for easy identification. Fifty taxi cabs were placed on the roads near Pilkhana for the rebels to drive to safe hide outs.

Most senior army officers working at the BDR HQ were killed soon after the outbreak of mutiny.  This killing spree took place between nine and eleven on Feb 25 morning. Yet, the rebel team led by Tauhid  which went to ‘ventilate  their grievances’ to the Prime Minister was under clear instructions not to betray their emotions but keep engaged in negotiations with Prime Minister and her aides as long as possible. This they were told was necessary to gain enough time for escape. And they succeeded literally in misleading the Prime Minister.

Simultaneously, word went to the BNP and JEI cadres to take out processions in favor of the rebels in order to incite them to go for an open confrontation with the Army. JEI and ICS cadres dominated the processions.

Nasiruddin Ahmed Pintu, BNP leader and a former Minister, organized safe exit for rebels through Hazaribagh. Salauddin and his close circles did like wise at Chittagong and Cox’s Bazar. Local JEI leaders chipped in with their help at Motijheel, Comilla and Sylhet to the great relief of BDR rebels. Moral and logistic support also came from close associates of JEI chief Matiur Rahman Nizami and JEI Secretary General Ali Ahsan Mujahid.

Around 25 JEI activists entered BDR HQ (at Pilkhana) on the intervening night on Feb 23/24 prior to the mutiny in the guise of Maulanas on the pretext of doing Tabligh work and religious preaching among sepoys.  One of them, with a mask and in olive green (BDR) uniform entered the Durbar area from emergency exit on the fateful day. He drew the first blood by opening fire at senior army officers assembled there. Subsequently, a section of sepoys led by Deputy Assistant Directors Tauhid resorted to indiscriminate killing, looting and plunder.

Maj. Gen. Rahman is a Rukon (member) of JEI. As head of the border guards, he had inducted around 5000 JEI activists into BDR till Mar 2008. It was these JEI cadres who were well trained in handling weapons and combat who took part in the mutiny. Others who took part in the carnage were a well armed gang of anti-social elements, who are under the patronage of Salauddin, according to investigators.

SALAUDDIN’S REACH

Business circles in Bangladesh are aware of SQC’s multiple criminal nexus they keep talking about it in hushed voices. One such talking point is how ten truck loads of arms found at the Chittagong Port in 2004 were smuggled aboard his Ship QC Tails. But none of them dares to stick their neck out of fear. The level of intimidation from SQC camp is such, says an investigator.

Salauddin was detained during the caretaker government, which had launched a virtual crusade against corruption. The anti-corruption and anti-crime drive saw many leading lights of the BNP go to jail in 2007. Islamabad brought pressure on Dhaka to let him free. Pakistan moved in because Salauddin’s wife pleaded with high and mighty in the establishment and the ISI to come to their rescue. When Bangladesh Army chief, Gen Moeen visited Islamabad in 2008, his interlocutors explicitly enquired about Salauddin. It appears that only political personality in jail about whom Pakistan wanted to know was SQC.

ISI- SQC had a plan to sabotage the Sheik Hasina Govt’s efforts to reach an understanding with India on issues like return of ULFA insurgents to India. The combine was apprehensive particularly of ULFA chief Anup Chetia spilling the beans in the Indian custody about ISI abetting insurgency in North-East India. The ULFA insurgents have been made to believe that their interests would be served only if BNP-JEI clique returns to power. The indoctrination was such that some ULFA cadres actively participated in the BDR mutiny

Based on video footage of the mutiny scenes, investigators have reason to believe that the short statured soldiers who took part in the brutalities with their faces covered were indeed ULFA cadres.

Hasina might be unaware of the mutiny in her own capital immediately. Not Sajjad Rasool, the Defence Attaché at the Pakistan High Commission in Dhaka. There is circumstantial evidence to show that he had all the details of the development in Pilkhana with in an hour or so.

At any rate Rasool was clearly in know of Pilkhana killings by 1230 hrs (Feb 25) as he had told his contacts in Dhaka and Islamabad that DG BDR Maj Gen Shakeel Ahmed and other Army officers had been killed even while Prime Minister was yet to be alerted about the gruesome assassinations. ISI HQ received Rasool report in the forenoon of Feb 25 confirming the killing of Shakeel and others. Even local (Bangladesh) media was unable to unearth this fact until Feb 28.

ISI DIRECTIONS

Ever since the assassination of Sheik Mujib-ur-Rehman in 1975, army and religious fundamentalist groups have controlled the levers of state power in Bangladesh. These groups despite being in numerical minority have always wielded formidable strength. This was the reason why the first Hasina government (1996-2001) remained quite ineffective. All key positions within the bureaucracy, army, and media and even in business were under control of pro-Islamist, pro-Pak and ISI supported entities.

But in 2007, for the first time in the history of independent Bangladesh, the army under Gen Moeen remained disinclined to take over power. What was more it remained strongly and overtly supportive of the democratic process and the elections which brought Hasina back to power..

This was certainly not to the liking of the ISI and ISI supported organizations as well as the pro-Islamist forces. BDR mutiny is the first manifestation of the ISI machinations to dislodge Hasina Govt.

As Pakistani involvement is becoming increasingly clear efforts are being made to implicate India. An article, ‘Pilkahana Conspiracy’ on Internet blog, ‘Desh Calling (Sep 16, 2009) is pointer to the unfolding campaign. Laying the entire blame for the BDR mutiny on India, the document names among the conspirators Awami League lawmaker Sheikh Fazle Noor Taposh. What an audacity it is. Taposh was the target of a bomb attack on October 21).  The blog, ‘Desh Calling’, it is said, is an ISI front and is linked to Salauddin.  If this is true, then it makes an interesting copy.

MERGER MINDSET

‘Bangladesh will rejoin Pakistan’, declared Majid Nizami, Chief Editor of ‘Nawa-i-Waqt’, who is also the Chairman of ‘Nazarya-e-Pakistan Trust. He made the forecast while addressing an ‘Eighth Teachers Workshop’ and sharing the stage with many prominent persons, the daily said.

About a month prior to this meeting, on July 1, the same daily quoted Nizami’s reasoning. “India has split Pakistan to give birth to Bangladesh but India has failed to have good relations with Bangladesh. Sooner than later Bangladesh will re-merge into Pakistan as it has good brotherly relations with the people of Pakistan”, he told the 9th session of Summer Ideology School.

How influential Majid Nizami is not the question. But his thinking is. It highlights a mind set in Pakistan that has not reconciled to the emergence of Bengali speaking East Pakistan as an independent sovereign country destined to chart its own course free from the influence of Lahore Punjabis.