[Bangla Daily Star] A Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) jawan was found hanging from a ceiling fan at the Shainik Lines in Feni's 19th Rifles Battalion and a BDR Imam died of liver cirrhosis at a Dhaka hospital yesterday, taking the BDR death toll following the mutiny to 24.A Sylhet court yesterday said it will frame charges against 108 arrested BDR Jawans on June 9 and 10 for two separate sedition cases in connection with the February 25 BDR mutiny.
These would be the first charges framed against suspected BDR mutineers. Fourty sedition cases were filed in 29 districts against BDR jawans in different units around the country.
Meanwhile, State Minister for Home Affairs Tanjim Ahmed Sohel Taj told The Daily Star yesterday that the government probe report on the BDR mutiny will come out today.
"We will publish the report at 4:00pm tomorrow through media," Taj said.
2 MORE DEATHS
Yesterday, the BDR issued a press release saying that initial assessments suggested havilder assistant Zakir Hossain Bhuiyan of the 19th Battalion in Feni "committed suicide" as he was found hanging from a ceiling fan at the Shainik Lines around 7:45am.
Zakir, who joined BDR in 1988, is the son of M M Najir Ahmed Bhuiyan of Feni's West Chhagalnaiya village.
His body will be sent to his village home by the BDR after the postmortem.
Another BDR release said BDR Dinajpur Sector's Imam Hafez Hafizur Rahman, 47, died of liver cirrhosis developed from hepatitis-B.
He was treated at both Dinajpur hospital and Rangpur Medical College Hospital, but later took a month's leave on May 10 to get admitted to Modern Hospital in Dhanmondi in Dhaka, where he died yesterday at 1:30am, the release added.
SEDITION CASE
Our Sylhet correspondent reports: Judge M Momin Ullah of District and Sessions Judge's Court set the dates for framing charges against the 108 arrested BDR jawans.
All the 108 BDR jawans were before the court during the yesterday's hearing.
Officer-in-charge of Sylhet Kotwali police station Inspector Syeduzzaman filed two sedition cases with the Chief Judicial Magistrate's Court in Sylhet on May 17 against the 108 BDR jawans for staging a mutiny with firearms that they looted from their battalion arsenals.
The investigation officers do not need to press charges as they case were filed directly with the court.
Meanwhile, a Dhaka court yesterday placed 60 suspected BDR mutineers on a five-day remand each in connection with the BDR mutiny case.