The High Court (HC) today (November 5) issued a rule asking the authorities concerned to dispose of a petition within 10 days seeking the formation of an independent commission of inquiry to uncover the truth behind the carnage at the BDR headquarters Pilkhana on 25th and 26th February. in 2009.

An HC division bench of Justice Farah Mahbub and Justice Debashish Roy Chowdhury issued the rule following a writ petition filed by two Supreme Court lawyers seeking directions to the government to constitute the commission and the court fixed November 24 for the next hearing.

Advocates SC Md Tanvir Ahmed and Biplab Kumar Poddar filed the petition as Public Interest Litigation on October 20.

In the petition, they also prayed for an HC order directing the concerned authorities to declare February 25 as ‘Shaheed Sena Dibos (martyred soldier’s day)’.

Advocate SC Tanvir himself filed the petition, which was seconded by another advocate Biplab, while Deputy Attorney General Tanim Khan represented the state.

During his submission before the court, Tanvir said that no investigative report on the culprits and the mastermind behind the Pilkhana massacre has been published nationally.

After the fall of the Awami League (AL) government on August 5, families of the victims and former army officers provided new information about the massacre.

He said some people claimed the investigation was not properly conducted.

“In the given context, we submitted a petition to the Ministry of Home Affairs on November 3, requesting the formation of an independent national commission of inquiry and declaring February 25 as ‘Shaheed Sena Dibos,’” he said.

The massacre inside the Pilkhana headquarters of the former Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), now Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), took place on 25–26 February 2009, in which 74 people, including 57 army officials, were killed .

On 5 November 2013, a court in Dhaka sentenced 150 BDR members and two civilians to death and 160 others to life imprisonment in connection with the murder case. A total of 256 people, mostly BDR soldiers, were sentenced to prison, and another 278 were acquitted.

The HC later delivered its verdict on November 27, 2017, upholding the death sentence of 139 people and life sentence for 185 others. Some 228 defendants received various prison terms and another 45 were acquitted of the charges.

The State filed leave to appeal (leave to appeal) against 83 defendants who were acquitted of charges or had their sentences commuted.

In the biggest case in the country’s history, BNP leader and former MP Nasir Uddin Ahmed Pintu has been charged. He later died in prison.