On February 25th, the world witnessed the lifting of about 70 army officers from the mass graves in the Bangladesh rifles military compound. This is the worst military mutiny ever to have happened in the Asian continent. Once again, it has raised the doubts that whether Bangladesh is our reliable neighbor in terms of security aspects. The reason for the revolt is assumed that the director-general of BDR is extremely unpopular among the soldiers of the lower cadres because of his corruption and bad treatment of the lower officers. As the director-general did not allow the soldiers to meet the prime minister sheikh hasina wajed, and express their grievances, they became violent and shot down the DG of BDR. They even held hostage of some army persons and later killed them. This incident has many implications. First, Bangladesh civilian administration does not have good control over their military counterparts. Military is expected to occupy a prominent place in Bangladesh politics. Despite the PM of Bangladesh holding the defense portfolio, she could not control the mutiny.
Second, in order to combat the Indo-Bangla border insurgencies, drug &human trafficking, we need a responsible force of Bangladeshi rifles. So India is upset in this regard.
Third, setting up of two independent committees, one by the army and the other by the government to probe the mutiny, reflects the lack of confidence between the two parts. This is not desirable in a democracy.
Let us hope that the armed forces of Bangladesh remain with in their constitutional limits and be subservient to the civilian administration. This a lesson for Bangladesh that armed persons cannot be treated as mere casual labourers. Only now Pakistan has moved from military cover to civilian cover. Let Bangladesh do not repeat the same mistake.
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