A special court yesterday completed framing charges against all 847 accused of the Pilkhana carnage case.
The much-awaited trial of the 2009 BDR carnage case will start on August 24 with the deposition of complainant Nabojyoti Khisha, the then officer-in-charge of Lalbagh Police Station.
A total of 824 BDR jawans and 23 civilians in this case are accused of crimes like arson, theft, looting, disposing bodies by dumping or burying in mass graves.
Fifty-seven army officers who were on deputation in then Bangladesh Rifles, renamed later as Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), were killed in the bloody mutiny.
The court proceedings started around noon, at least two and a half hours behind the schedule. Though the judge was present at his chamber, the proceedings could not begin as police failed to produce the accused before the court in time, which they blamed on the weather.
The court read out charges against 107 accused and thus finished framing charges against all the accused of the case filed for brutal killings at the Pilkhana headquarters.
Earlier, the court completed framing charges against 740 other accused.
"I have framed charges of the most gruesome killings," said Judge Mohammad Zohurul Hoque of the Metropolitan Sessions Judge's Court.
The total number of accused was originally 850 after induction of 26 people in the supplementary charge sheet, but three of them died later. Besides, 20 of them are still at large. All the accused in police custody were hauled before the court yesterday.
The accused include Towhidul Islam, then deputy assistant director of Bangladesh Rifles, Subedar Maj Gofran Mallik, Sepoy Selim Reza, former BNP lawmaker Nasiruddin Ahmed Pintu and Awami League activist Torab Ali. They are accused of playing a major role in the carnage.
Meanwhile, the prosecution yesterday proposed for framing charges against 831 accused in another case filed for possessing and blasting explosives during the February 25-26 mutiny in 2009.
The court asked the defence to submit discharge petitions in connection with the case filed under the Explosives Substances Act on the next scheduled date. The number of witnesses in the case is around 1,200.
Source : The Daily Star
