More bodies found following mutiny in Bangladesh

Eighteen more bodies have been pulled from the devastated headquarters of Bangladesh’s border guards, following a two-day revolt against superior officers that left at least 40 people dead.

Most of the bodies are believed to be those of unit commanders. Earlier, officials said at least 22 people were killed, though dozens more remained missing.

Security forces have detained hundreds of fleeing border guards and set up roadblocks across the country since the revolt.

The border guards, whose unit rose up against their commanders earlier this week, have been promised amnesty, but it was not clear if that would apply to guards who fled their bases.

Soon after tanks rolled into Dhaka and intimidated the mutinous border guards, who had seized their main compound in the capital, into laying down their arms, many mutineers fled under cover of darkness.

More than 230 mutineers – most dressed in civilian clothing – were rounded up last night on the outskirts of Dhaka. Security forces arrested 68 more mutineers near the town of Savar, 25 miles north west of Dhaka.

Security forces have set up road checkpoints to search buses, and are also searching ferries as they look for more mutineers.

Dozens of families – particularly those related to senior border guard officers - still did not know what had happened to their relatives and they gathered yesterday as police continued to retrieve bodies from the main border guard base.

Ten-year-old Mohammad Rakib, standing outside the devastated headquarters of the border agency, cried: “Let me talk to my father. Where is my father?”

Rakib was with his mother looking for his father, Captain Mohammad Shamim.

Nearly 2,000 guards opened fire on their senior officers and seized their headquarters in the capital on Wednesday to protest about poor pay and conditions.

Twenty-two bodies, many of them senior officers of Bangladesh Rifles, the country’s border force, have been found, said fire official Dilip Kumar Ghosh.

He said 34 officers and men were rescued after the mutineers surrendered and firefighters were searching for at least 65 more missing people.

Mr Ghosh said two of the bodies – a man and a woman – were found at the home of the border force’s chief, Major General Shakil Ahmed, but the commander was not one of them.

One officer said earlier that he saw Gen Ahmed killed immediately after the mutiny began.

The mutinous guards agreed to surrender after the government promised on Wednesday to give them amnesty and look into their demands.

But as the process stalled and the revolt appeared to be spreading to other areas yesterday, recently elected prime minister Sheikh Hasina warned the rebels she would “do whatever is needed to end the violence”.

Hours later, tanks and armoured vehicles with heavy machine guns rolled into the capital, taking up positions in residential neighbourhoods around the border guards’ compound.

The guards hoisted a white flag yesterday afternoon and resumed laying down their arms.

The insurrection was the result of frustrations over pay for the border guards that did not keep pace with that of the army’s – highlighted by rising food prices in the chronically poor South Asian country as the global economic crisis grows.

Their resentment has been heightened by the practice of appointing army officers to head the border guards. The border guards do not participate in UN peacekeeping missions, which bring additional pay.

The army plays a pivotal role in Bangladesh, and only recently allowed the country of 150 million return to civilian rule.

There have been 19 failed coup attempts since the country gained independence from Pakistan in 1971, and two presidents have been killed in military takeovers.