BDR Carnage
Witness tells court that he guarded abandoned arms
A prosecution witness in the BDR killings trial told a Dhaka court yesterday that he had, at risk of his life, guarded firearms abandoned by his colleagues at a guardroom at Pilkhana during the bloody mutiny on February 25, 2009.
The prosecution witness Havildar Abu Taher, who was acting as guard commander at entrance no. 3 of Pilkhana at the time, also said his associates had abandoned their firearms and left the room as soon as the mutiny broke out.
Taher was one of six witnesses who gave their deposition yesterday before the Metropolitan Session Judge's Court, set up at the capital's Alia Madrasa playground in Bakshibazar. The witnesses were later cross-examined by defence lawyers.
While cross-examining Taher defence lawyer Aminul Islam put up the inconsistency of witness's deposition with the statement given earlier under section 161 of the Criminal Procedure Code.
The witness Taher specifically named sepoy Reaj at the court yesterday, but had made no mention of that name in his prior testimony to the magistrate under section 161, Aminul said. The defence lawyer pleaded with the court to present the original copy of the deposition.
However, the original copy could not be produced at the court at the time.
The court agreed with the defence lawyer's plea that the original copy of Taher's testimony should be present at the court during the recording of depositions.
The court sought explanation from the prosecution panel regarding the whereabouts of the original copy of the statement. In response, prosecutor Mosharaf Hossain Kajol asserted that the original statement lay in the custody of the court and not with the prosecution.
The court was able to record only the initials of the accused after failing to decipher the exact name from the copy.
The court was adjourned till March 15.
Seventy-four people, including 57 army officers, were brutally killed in a carnage by disgruntled soldiers of BDR (now Border Guard Bangladesh-BGB) at Pilkhana on February 25-26, 2009.
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