Dhaka, Dec 1 (IANS) Bangladesh’s Awami League party on Monday strongly condemned the “malicious” attempt by the Muhammad Yunus-led interim government to politically mislead the nation with “baseless fictional narratives” about the Pilkhana massacre.
The remarks came after a National Independent Commission formed in December 2024 by the interim government to investigate the killings during the 2009 Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) mutiny submitted its report to Chief Advisor Yunus on Sunday, accusing former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and several senior Awami League leaders of orchestrating the massacre.
According to Bangladesh’s leading newspaper Prothom Alo, on February 25 2009, several hundred Bangladesh Rifles men rose in an armed revolt at the Darbar Hall of the force’s Pilkhana headquarters during the three-day “BDR Week”. They killed 74 people, including 57 army officers.
Expressing grave concern, the party alleged that the “illegal usurper killer-fascist Yunus clique” has deliberately released a fabricated investigation report on the highly emotional and tragic Pilkhana massacre.
“The way this report has been published makes it clear that it is a prescribed and politically motivated rant of an illegal occupying regime. The report collectively blames the Bangladesh Awami League. Yet they have not been able to show any proof, nor will they ever be able to, that the Awami League as a party made any decision before or after this incident. In fact, an objective analysis shows that it was a blueprint to destabilise the government led by Sheikh Hasina, and the killings were carried out entirely from an anti-Awami League sentiment,” read a statement issued by the Awami League.
The party stated that the BDR Deputy Assistant Directors who led the massacre were appointed during the Bangladesh Nationalist Party–Jamaat–e–Islami rule, and they selectively killed military officers from freedom fighters and Awami League families. Many of those officers, it said, had played important roles in eliminating militancy and ensuring the fair election of 2008.
The Awami League questioned who would have stood to gain from such an incident, barely 50 days after Hasina formed her government.
“After the release of the commission’s report, its malicious intent has become clear to the entire nation. People across the country are already expressing their views on social media against this fake and fabricated report. There is nothing more for us to add. We call upon everyone to remain united against the scheme of these illegal usurpers to weaken the country’s political forces in order to legitimise their unlawful power,” the party stressed.
Asserting that the challenge now is to protect the nation from the division and confusion that the Commission’s “malicious” actions would create, the Awami League urged the people of Bangladesh to stay united and succeed in this challenge
–IANS
scor/as
