Special tribunals will try close to 1,000 soldiers charged with murder and arson. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said some 668 members of the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) were in custody and warrants had been issued for another 1,000 over the killings. At least 71 people were still unaccounted for in the uprising at the Bangladesh Rifles border force headquarters in the capital Dhaka, and teams were searching for more bodies buried in the compound or dumped in nearby sewers. Government minister Syed Ashraful Islam said the decision to set up the tribunals was made at a cabinet meeting led by Hasina on Saturday. No details about the tribunals were released. An investigation led by Home Minister Shahara Khatun has been told to hand down its first findings within a week. Hasina told parliament she had summoned the army to begin ‘Operation Rebel Hunt' to find those wanted for the 33-hour revolt in the capital, describing it as “completely pre-planned murder.” Hasina said the army would be deployed from Monday. She said she was also seeking help from FBI agents and Britain's Scotland Yard in the case. The charges named six border guards and left more than 1,000 unnamed, according to police official Nobojyoti Khisa. Thousands of border guards were at the headquarters when the mutiny began Wednesday out of a total force of 67,000. The charges came as questions were raised about whether the border guards acted on their own. One officer - among just 33 known to have survived the bloody siege - described the mutiny as “like doomsday for me.” Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina met inside army headquarters Sunday with military officials who were furious that she offered amnesty to the mutinous border guards to persuade them to surrender during the two-day siege. The officers argued that lives could have been saved if Hasina had ordered an army assault on the guards' compound. Ruling party spokesman Syed Ashraful Islam said initial evidence suggested that the mutinous guards may have had outside assistance, but he did not elaborate.
