Mutinous members of a paramilitary unit in the Bangladesh capital surrendered their weapons today as tanks surrounded their headquarters after a second day of gunfire in a mutiny that killed about 50 people.
Government officials and police said the mutiny in Dhaka was under control and urged members of the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) border guards who had mutinied elsewhere in the country over pay and command issues to lay down their arms.
Gunfire in the capital gradually subsided and stopped after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina threatened tough action in a national broadcast, a day after offering mutineers an amnesty.
"All the rebel troops have surrendered with their arms and the process has been completed," Hasina's media spokesman, Abul Kalam Azad, said of the BDR troops in the capital.
At least 20 government tanks and 15 armoured personnel carriers ringed the BDR headquarters in Dhaka, where nearly 50 people were killed yesterday's violence.
Hundreds of BDR mutineers handed over their weapons, including automatic rifles, machineguns and grenades, to police who locked the weapons inside two armouries in the BDR complex.
"Police have locked the armouries and handed me the keys after the troops completed the surrender," Home Minister Sahara Khatun told reporters outside the BDR headquarters, where the mutiny broke out yesterday.
Those killed in the shooting there and nearby included eight army officers and six civilians, police said.
Private Chanel-I television, quoting security officials, reported today that 168 army officers were present at the meeting at the BDR headquarters when the shooting started.
"Eight of them have been found dead, 22 have been rescued alive but the others including the paramilitary chief, Major-General Sakil Ahmed, are missing," Channel-I said.
Some security sources and the media said Sakil and his family might have been killed but there was no official comment.
"I myself was at the meeting and saw the chief (Sakil) and others being shot," one army officer told a private TV station.
Hundreds of regular soldiers in battledress surrounded the BDR headquarters as the surrender was completed.
About 60 BDR troops who tried to flee the compound were arrested, and 200 BDR officers held hostage in the complex were freed, police said.
The turmoil underscores the challenges facing Hasina, who took office last month after winning parliamentary elections in December that returned Bangladesh to democracy after nearly two years of army-backed emergency rule.
Reuters