Ex-senior army officers call for withdrawing armed forces from streets

Forty-eight retired army officers have called on the government to withdraw the armed forces from the streets immediately, citing that the ongoing political turmoil stems from various long standing economic, social, and cultural issues.

They made the call during a press conference held at RAOWA Club today.

Iqbal Karim Bhuiyan, who served as the Chief of Army Staff of the Bangladesh Army from 2012 to 2015, read out a written statement at the press conference.

"Today 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 reads out explaining the reasons behind their sudden gathering.

"At the moment our border is unprotected. BGB [Border Guard Bangladesh] members have been withdrawn in significant numbers from the border belt to quell the student movement," Bhuiyan reads.

Another former army chief Lt Gen Nuruddin Khan also spoke at the event.

Regarding the recent violence and killings across the country, the statement says, "Those who are responsible for pushing people of this country to a state of such extreme misery will have to be brought to justice."

The statement further says, "All the unprovoked attacks and counter-attacks instigated by the goons in power resulted in hundreds of deaths and thousands of life threatening and life damaging injuries. Victims of these attacks are denied access to treatment, even the emergency ones."

"Besides, protesters are being vilified as terrorists, getting picked up from their home, flat, or mess en masse by the law enforcing agencies aided by the ruling party functionaries using a method known as block-raid. Thousands of innocent youths, both boys and girls, either in hiding or getting arrested on falsely implicated charges."

The former army officials, in their statement, say no individual with minimum sanity and conscience can tolerate such a war-like situation in this country. "Along with the members of all the classes and professions, collectively we will put every effort to restore peace in this country."

The statement also says the quota reform movement began peacefully but "the instigators on purpose repeatedly provoked the protesting students by letting loose the ruling party hooligans and organised forces such as police, RAB, Ansar, and BGB on them."

"This second party used helicopters and surveillance drones overhead and gun mounted APCs on the streets and utilised every excuse to shoot at indiscriminately to kill or fatally injure the innocent youths protesting for a just cause," it reads.

On the role of army personnel while the government imposed a curfew, the statement says, "Using them as cover the members of the aforementioned much hated second party continued with their assaults and attacks on the protesting students and general public."

"In no way our armed forces should come forward to rescue those who have created this current situation. Never in the past our armed forces aimed their guns at the fellow citizens or treated them as a belligerent force," it reads.

The ex-army officials urged the government to undertake political initiatives aiming at resolving the ongoing crisis.