The High Court today issued a rule asking the government authorities involved to explain why they should not be directed to constitute a commission headed by a retired Appellate Division judge to find out the real culprits and the mastermind behind the BDR carnage.

The HC bench of Justice Farah Mahbub and Justice Debashish Roy Chowdhury issued the rule following a writ petition filed by two Supreme Court lawyers seeking government directions to constitute an independent national committee to find the criminals.

The court also ordered the Ministry of Interior to resolve within 10 days the request submitted by the petitioners for the formation of such a committee.

SC advocates Mr Tanvir Ahmed and Biplab Kumar Poddar filed the petition as a Public Interest Litigation on October 20, also praying the HC to ask the concerned authorities to declare February 25 as ‘Shaheed Sena Dibos’ as the massacre had held on February 25 and 26 in 2009.

The riot at the Pilkhana headquarters of the former Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) on 25–26 February 2009, which killed 74 people, including 57 army officials.

In the petition, the two lawyers said the BDR riot victims and their families are demanding an independent national committee to find out the real culprits and masterminds behind the brutal murders.

But the concerned government authorities failed to take any initiative in this regard, the petition said.

On 5 November 2013, a court in Dhaka sentenced 150 BDR members and two civilians to death and 160 others to life imprisonment for their role and involvement in the carnage. A total of 256 people, mostly BDR soldiers, received prison sentences.

The court acquitted another 278 people, but the prosecution later appealed against the acquittal of 69.

In January 2015, the SC began hearing the convicts’ appeals and delivered its verdict on 27 November 2017, upholding the death sentence of 139 people. It commuted the death sentence of eight convicts to life imprisonment and acquitted five others who were sentenced to death by the trial court.

The HC upheld the life sentence of 146 and acquitted 14 of the 160 accused, who were sentenced to life imprisonment by the lower court. A total of 248 accused out of the 278 were acquitted by the SC.

The execution of death row convicts now depends on the hearing of the appeals by the Appellate Division and its verdict.