The sluice gate of a sewer from BDR headquarters Nawabganj Bazar has turned into a hole for the dead as more bodies of BDR officers killed in Wednesday's mutiny washed out at the gate yesterday morning. Eight bodies -- two on Wednesday and six yesterday -- have been discovered near the embankment in Hazaribagh thana. Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (Wasa) plans to pump water into the sewer lines from inside the BDR headquarters to flush out dead bodies if any are still trapped inside. It had initially deployed a team to search for bodies at the sluice gate but later withdrew the team as there was little they could do from that point.
| The bodies discovered yesterday were identified as those of Lt Col Kamruzzaman, Lt Col Anisuzzaman, Maj Mahbub, Col Zahid, Col Tauheed and Captain Mohammad Majharul Hayder. |
Captain Majharul Hayder, who got married only in December last year, served as a staff officer to the director general (DG) of BDR. His wife Nushrat Nur Badhon, daughter of the present Inspector General of Police (IGP) Nur Mohammad, was rescued from the BDR headquarters at Pilkhana late on Wednesday night. The whereabouts of the families of the six other army officials are, however, not known yet.
The drains from the BDR headquarters lead to the river Buriganga through Kellarmore, Swarighat, Babubazar and Sadarghat. Since the first two bodies were found at the sluice gate in Hazaribagh, hundreds of locals including relatives of those missing have kept watching at the water pouring out through the gate.
Muazzem Hossain, waiting around the gate, told reporters that his younger brother Maj Humayun who was at the BDR headquarters when the mutiny began has been missing since.
Mutawakkil was found weeping, as he anticipated the worst -- no one in the family has been able to contact his nephew Lt Col Shamsul Azam since Wednesday morning.
A Wasa engineer said, "The dead bodies seem to have been dumped into the sewer line through manhole openings and the flowing water carried them out the sluice gate." There are around ten manholes within BDR headquarters, he said.
The underground sub-sewer line from BDR has two sections, the diameter of the sub-sewer line across Pilkhana ranges from three to four feet. One section of this line from the BDR goes out through Gate 4 and runs up to Nawabganj sluice gate while the other runs up to Kalunagar on Hazaribagh canal. The diameter of Nawabganj sluice gate is five metres. The sub-sewer lines are wider at the meeting point with the trans sewer line.