Dhaka, July 12 (DPA) The Bangladeshi government Monday approved a draft law on the paramilitary border force that would impose a maximum penalty of death against mutineers, an official said.
The council of ministers of the Awami League-led ruling alliance headed by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina approved the draft of the Boarder Guard Bangladesh Bill 2010 at a meeting.
Bangladesh faced a deadly mutiny at the border guards’ headquarters in Dhaka in February 2009.
The troopers rose up against their commanders at the headquarters of the Bangladesh Rifles, leaving at least 74 people, including 54 army officers, dead.
The existing maximum punishment of seven years imprisonment under the Bangladesh Rifles Order of 1972 for mutiny or disobedience would be replaced by capital punishment once the proposed law is passed by parliament, Abul Kalam Azad, a spokesman for the Prime Minister’s Office, said.
He said the force would be renamed Border Guard Bangladesh.
