Bangladesh manhunt for mutineers

Bangladesh border guards report to barracks following the mutiny in Dhaka

Border guards were told to report to their posts or face disciplinary action

 

The Bangladesh army has launched a manhunt for border guards who mutinied at their headquarters in Dhaka last week, killing about 140 army officers.

 

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said the revolt was planned in advance, and that an investigation is now underway.

 

She said she had asked the US FBI and the UK's Scotland Yard for assistance in the investigation into the mutiny.

 

Bangladesh police say they are charging more than 1,000 border guardsmen in connection with the mutiny.

 

The charges include conspiracy to kill officers and civilians, using weapons and explosives, creating panic, looting and trying to hide bodies.

 

The remains of more than 70 officers have still not yet been found, days after the violence in Dhaka.

 

The mutiny by the Bangladesh Rifles apparently began as a row over pay.

 

Little mercy

 

The BBC's Mark Dummett, in Dhaka, says the fugitive border guards can expect little mercy from the army, which has now been ordered to fan out across Bangladesh to apprehend them.

 

Speaking in parliament on Sunday night, Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said that nearly 700 soldiers of the Bangladesh rifles were already in detention.

 

Those in custody are men who laid down their guns after the prime minister promised to send tanks in to crush their revolt. The others were somehow able to escape.

 

Sheikh Hasina said she had contacted US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher and would also approach Britain's Scotland Yard for help in investigating the mutiny.

 

"I have had discussions with Richard Boucher. I told him I want FBI assistance in the probe," she said.

 

"I'd also like Scotland Yard to help us, and I have already sought UN support."

 

The bodies of 70 officers have been discovered so far, many of them mutilated after being shot.

 

Some 70 more corpses remain missing - correspondents say they have either been burnt or dumped in fast-flowing sewers. Some of the officers' wives were also killed.

 

Police have named six of the men they accuse of carrying out the mutiny. The six were involved in negotiating the mutineers' surrender.

 

The mutiny ended when the government threatened to quell it by force.

 

The Bangladeshi government had offered the mutineers an amnesty but once the scale of the massacre became apparent, it said those responsible would be punished.

 

The army has said that those found guilty of murder will be executed.

 

'Rebel Hunt'

 

The police say they still do not have the names of more than 1,000 others who they believe were also involved.

         

Soldiers remove a body from a grave at the headquarters of the border guards

 

Sheikh Hasina told parliament she had initiated a search operation codenamed Operation Rebel Hunt, the AFP news agency reported.

 

After searches of the vast compound, bodies were found either buried in shallow mass graves or dumped into the fast-flowing sewers below ground.

 

Some charred human bones have been found in the remains of a fire.

 

The army has postponed the funerals of those who died until all the bodies have been found.

 

Meanwhile, hundreds of guards began returning to their posts on Sunday after the mutiny ended on Thursday.

 

They had been given a 24-hour ultimatum to do so or face disciplinary action.