Details of a bloodbath in the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, emerged yesterday in the wake of an uprising by paramilitaries who were finally forced to surrender by columns of advancing tanks.
One government source said 50 people had been killed, though the official toll was 11 last night, including an army major general and his wife murdered in cold blood by members of the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), the border security force.
The onslaught began when the army officer corps dismissed appeals by the paramilitaries for more pay, subsidised food and holidays and refused to send them on lucrative UN peacekeeping missions.
The result was a bloody takeover of the BDR headquarters. A succession of officers were shot and children from the regiment’s school taken hostage.
Despite an agreement to surrender in exchange for a general amnesty and a promise to consider grievances, fighting erupted across the country, raising the spectre of a military takeover after a return to democracy with elections last month.
Local television reported that a dozen copycat rebellions had begun in the 64 border districts where the 45,000-strong paramilitary force is stationed. Shots were fired at the commanding officer’s residence at a border guard post in the southern town of Tekhnaf, sending him fleeing, said police official Jalal Ahmed Chowdhury. Witnesses said there was violence at border guard posts in Cox’s Bazar, Chittagong and Naikhongchari in the south, Sylhet in the north-east, and Rajshahi and Naogaon in the north-west.
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