Bangladesh News

A 14-soldier team of Bangladesh Rifles arrived at Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s official residence Jamuna for talks with her.

They went to Jamuna with state minister Jahangir Kabir Nanak and parliament whip Mirza Azam shortly after 3.45pm.

Nanak and Azam were sent by the prime minister to the BDR headquarters for talks in a bid to calm down the situation that erupted in the morning following some demands of the BDR soldiers.

Mutinous BDR members earlier said they would call a ceasefire after holding talks with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Home Minister Sahara Khatun.

Talking to reporters inside the BDR headquarters, the soldiers said they would not talk to anybody except the prime minister and the home minister.

“We will allow the PM and cabinet members in. We will tell them our demands. You ask them to come right now. We will call ceasefire once they are in,” a BDR jawan said.

The BDR jawans also demanded the army cordon be withdrawn before any type of talks.

“We want the PM and the home minister to come. We want to tell them that we need freedom.”

“Everybody knows how miserably we live. We cannot work independently. We don’t have a department of our own.”

The BDR jawans claimed that there were up to 20,000 BDR soldiers inside the headquarters.

“We have no problem to surrender our arms. But we won’t turn in ourselves until our demands are met, and this war will continue.”