The National Independent Investigation Commission on the 2009 BDR carnage has found that conspirators inside and outside were involved in the grisly killing at the Pilkhana BDR headquarters.
Former director general of the erstwhile Bangladesh Rifles Major General ALM Fazlur Rahman, who headed the investigation commission, revealed the information in an interview with New Age at his residence recently in the city.
‘In this inquiry, we have found out the inside and outside conspirators were involved. It was not any munity out of grievances within,’ said Fazlur Rahaman, a freedom fighter.
It is true that soldiers had dissatisfaction due to work pressure as in any force and there was a shortage of manpower, which also helps improve their skills, he further said.
Although people said that the Dal Bhat Karmasuchi (rice and lentil programme) was one of the factors the soldiers were very disturbed about, Fazlur also said, it was not the genuine cause behind the deadly incident that saw 74 people, including 57 army officers, killed.
‘We don’t say that this was the cause, because the BDR director general, who was the man to fulfill their demand, was killed. They had to have their grievances addressed by the DG — isn’t it so? But we have seen that he was the first man to be killed along with few companions,’ the retired military bureaucrat said.
He said that their investigation had found a link between the Padua-Rowmari border conflict of 2001 and the Pilkhana tragedy in February, 2009 as more than 400 Indian Border Security soldiers were killed in that clash during his tenure as DG of the then BDR for invading Bangladesh territory in Kurigram.
He said that they had found that BDR soldiers were exploited during the mutiny that spread to other places outside the Pilkhana headquarters in Dhaka.
‘It’s a kind of incident that happened at Palashi in 1757 — leading to the fall of Bengal to the British. A Palashi incident happened here in a small place of Pilkhana,’ he mentioned.
He added that all forces, including the army and the Rapid Action Battalion, remained standby near Pilkhana without going for actions although the military officers were being killed on February 25 in 2009 and it continued on the following day.
‘The RAB was standing and they didn’t take any action so far. But in the army law of 1952, Section 31 is absolutely clear. Wherever there is a mutiny, undertaken by a soldier, it must be subdued as soon as possible before it spreads to others,’ he said.
He disclosed that they had found that the then ruling Awami League and a foreign power were directly involved in the BDR carnage.
Fazlur said that they had evidence showing neighbouring country India was involved in the conspiracy to weaken the Bangladesh Army.
The national investigation commission formed on December 24, 2024 by the interim government to reinvestigate the BDR carnage after the ouster of the authoritarian Sheikh Hasina regime in a student-led mass uprising on August 5, 2024, submitted its report on November 30, 2025.
