Withdraw troops from streets: Former top generals of Bangladesh tell PM Hasina

Their remarks came as violent clashes between protestors and the ruling Awami League supporters in Bangladesh on Sunday left dozens dead and hundreds injured on the first day of a non-cooperation movement announced by the students' movement demanding Prime Minister Hasina's resignation.

Dhaka: A group of Bangladesh's former senior military generals on Sunday asked the government to withdraw the armed forces from the streets and send them back to barracks, amid fresh violence across the country over the quota system for government jobs.

"We urge the government to undertake political initiatives to resolve the ongoing crisis. Do not destroy the good standing of our armed forces by keeping them engaged in a disgraceful campaign," said former army chief Iqbal Karim Bhuiyan.

Reading out a statement at a media briefing here, he said, "The Bangladeshi armed forces have never faced off with the masses or trained their guns at the chests of their fellow citizens." Bhuiyan, who served as the army chief under the incumbent Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government, read out the statement in the presence of dozens of former senior and mid-ranking military officers at the retired officers RAOWA Club adjacent to Dhaka Cantonment.

Another former army chief, octogenarian general Nuruddin Khan, who also served as the energy minister in Hasina’s past 1996-2001 tenure, was one of those who joined the briefing along with fellow officers, some of them being 1971 Liberation War veterans.

"Time is ripe to immediately take the soldiers to barracks to prepare themselves for any eventuality as the time taken to transition from internal security mode to operational mode takes quite some time,” the statement read.

Their remarks came as violent clashes between protestors and the ruling Awami League supporters in Bangladesh on Sunday left at least 49 people dead and hundreds injured on the first day of a non-cooperation movement announced by the students' movement demanding Prime Minister Hasina's resignation.

The former officers called for an investigation of all the killings, injuries, shootings, attacks, vandalisms, abductions, arrests, and acts of violence “that have to be carried out by the United Nations under its full authority”.

"We appeared here because we are deeply concerned, troubled, and saddened by all the egregious killings, tortures, disappearances, and mass arrests that have been tormenting Bangladesh over the past three weeks," Bhuiyan said.

He said witnessing all these as guardians, “we simply cannot absolve ourselves from the responsibilities associated with these untimely demises of hundreds of children, teens, and young brave souls".

The statement noted Bangladesh's armed forces worked tirelessly and made many sacrifices towards establishing global peace over the last three decades “but that respect, status, and pride are being questioned today".

The former military officers expressed their concerns about the mass-scale mobilization of army officers commanded paramilitary Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) to tame the internal unrest withdrawing them from frontier areas.

 “Not surprisingly the border is now open to parties who wish to exploit the internal turmoil the country is going through,” the statement read.

The retired officers briefing came a day after Army chief General Waker-uz-Zaman held a meeting with all military officers in Dhaka in person and cantonments outside through conference calls with reports saying he urged them to perform duties with “patience and restraints”.

The army, however, made no statement on the meeting which reportedly reviewed the situation while the chief interacted with the formation commanders and officers tasked to command troops in aid of civil administration as the unrest was underway.

The retired officers’ statement also carried a message for the troops deployed to support the civil administration, saying “You must stand beside the people of the country ensuring full adherence to universal human rights” as “we cannot let our motherland be destroyed in front of our eyes".

Bhuiyan, who served as the army chief from 2012 to 2015, said those who were responsible for pushing the people of this country to a state of such extreme misery should be brought to justice.

"Societal peace, order, and trust have to be restored by bringing in transparency, accountability, and justice and at the same time by ensuring punishment on those responsible for the current situation,” the statement read.

“If the policymakers of the country had not lost their sanity, soul, and conscience then this unprecedented atrocity that the state has been unleashing for the past three weeks on its citizens would have never taken place," it added.

The statement also attributed “hundreds of deaths and thousands of life-threatening and life-damaging injuries” to “all the unprovoked attacks and counter-attacks instigated by the goons in power”.

The government last month enforced a curfew with relaxed hours calling out army troops as the BGB forces appeared inadequate to support the police in handling the situation but according to media reports no major casualties occurred as the military interfered faced with “hot situations”.