Ahshad Hosein :
The release of the National Independent Investigation Commission’s report on the 2009 Pilkhana killings has forced Bangladesh to confront a truth that was buried beneath years of political convenience, suppressed evidence, and deliberate silence.
For sixteen years the nation was told that the massacre was an eruption of anger from within the Bangladesh Rifles. It was portrayed as an internal collapse of discipline and nothing more.
The commission’s findings now dismantle that narrative entirely and replace it with a disturbing conclusion.
The attack was planned, coordinated, politically sanctioned, and facilitated by actors who operated far beyond the walls of Pilkhana.
Among the named individuals is Barrister and a former lawmaker Sheikh Fazle Noor Taposh, identified by investigators as the key coordinator of the operation.
The report states that the massacre did not begin as a spontaneous mutiny but as a premeditated assault on the country’s military leadership.
The then head of government is said to have provided political approval that enabled the plot to unfold.
These findings alone would be enough to shake public confidence in past governments and previous inquiries.
Yet the commission goes further and introduces a dimension that Bangladesh has never publicly confronted.
The report states that a foreign power played a role in the events that led to the killings.
According to investigators, India had involvement in the planning and stood to gain strategically from the weakening of Bangladesh’s military and border security system. This allegation is unprecedented in an official document of this scale.
The commission argues that the collapse of the Bangladesh Rifles leadership benefited external interests and that cooperation took place between domestic political figures and foreign actors.
India has firmly denied these claims. However, the credibility of the commission as a state mandated body means the allegations cannot be dismissed or ignored without careful and transparent examination.
The claim of foreign involvement is not a small matter. If the massacre was shaped partly by external influence, then Pilkhana was not only a national tragedy but also a breach of sovereignty.
The killing of fifty seven army officers inside their own headquarters would represent a deliberate attempt to destabilise the country and distort the balance between civil authority and the military.
This possibility demands serious national reflection rather than political defensiveness.
For the families of the victims the report brings both relief and renewed anguish.
Their long standing belief that the earlier explanations were incomplete has now been validated. Their demand is simple.
They want the truth to be acknowledged in full. They want no names omitted, no actors protected, and no country placed beyond questioning.
Above all they want the justice that has been denied to them for sixteen years.
The government now carries a responsibility that cannot be delayed. It must publish the report in its entirety.
It must allow every allegation including those involving foreign involvement to be tested openly in court.
It must ensure that the legal process is free of political influence and diplomatic pressure.
Only full transparency can restore trust in the institutions that were shaken by the killings and prevent the tragedy from becoming another chapter in a cycle of concealed truths.
Bangladesh stands at a turning point. The Pilkhana massacre was a national trauma that demanded honesty from the beginning but was met instead with silence. The truth has finally begun to emerge.
It is now the duty of the state to ensure that this truth is not reshaped, softened, or buried for a second time.
A nation that respects its own sovereignty cannot afford to fear the consequences of accountability.
The 2025 investigation report claims India had involvement, but this claim is based on the commission’s interpretation of evidence and has not yet been independently verified or legally proven.
(The writer is a media
personality)
