Leaders of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party on Thursday demanded the completion of all legal processes, including trial and settlement of appeals, in cases relating to Bangladesh Rifles carnage by this year.

Talking to reporters after placing wreaths at the grave of slain BDR officers at Banani Military graveyard, BNP vice-chairman Hafiz Uddin made the demand to the judiciary and said, ‘12 long years have passed but the legal processes are yet to be completed.’

‘We are disappointed and the countrymen are shocked with the procrastination of the trial process. The legal process goes very slowly,’ he said.

‘We appeal to the judiciary to ensure justice in the officers’ murders soon. We hope that the final verdict will be announced by this year,’ he said.

He urged the government to identify local and foreign plotters, public their names and bring them to justice.

Besides Hafiz Uddin, BNP leaders Altaf Hossain Chowdhury and Elahi Akbar and Kalyan Party chairman Syed Muhammad Ibrahim were present.

In a separate programme, BNP senior joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi said that if his party would go to power, it would have hold a fresh investigation into the incidents and would hold a re-trial of the suspects.

Addressing a press conference at the party’s central office in Dhaka, Rizvi demanded that February 25 should be declared a national mourning day.

In February 25-26, 2009 BDR carnage, 75 people — 57 army officers, wives of two army officers, nine BDR soldiers, five civilians, an army soldier and a police constable, were killed.

On November 5, 2013, the Dhaka Additional Sessions Judge’s Court-3 sentenced 151 BDR personnel and a civilian to death, 160 BDR personnel and two civilians to life terms and jailed 256 others, mostly BDR soldiers, to varying terms.

The death sentences of 139 BDR soldiers were upheld by the High Court in a two-day judgement on November 26-27 in 2017.

A total of 71 appeals filed by the government and the convicts challenging the High Court’s 2017 judgement are pending for hearing in the Appellate Division.

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