I had a chance to talk to some of people about the BDR mutiny in Bangladesh and I was shocked to see a lot of negative emotion or impressions about the army of Bangladesh. Most people categorically states that the army of Bangladesh has become corrupt and they are doing all sorts of wrongs. While I could respect their opinion, I have to say someone is feeding wrong information to these people and their conspiracy runs deep. Even the bloody acts against the army officers could not sway their judgment on the army. Then I came across the article Lies about Bangladesh Army, conspiracy and responsibility of the Nation ( www.americanchronicle.com/ articles/view/ 92690) where the writer tried to depict a clear distinction about why people have negative feelings about the army. There was some obvious propaganda against the army. The only motivation behind it is to make Bangladesh a bottomless basket and present as a rogue state. One recent example as the writer put forward is: “The renegade troops alleged that the Director General of Bangladesh Rifles, Major General Shakil Ahmed Chowdhury [who has been martyred by the renegade troops] was buying edible soyabean oil for Tk 40 [US$ 0.57 ] per litre and selling in the market at a rate of Tk 104 [US$ 1.50 ]. Anyone having minimum knowledge about the world market will agree that, price of soyabean oil during the entire period of 2007 [June] to 2008 [ October] was above US$ 1 ,200 per ton. In this case, the import cost of soyabean oil was US$ 1.20 or Tk 82.80 per liter. There is 19.50 per cent Value Added Tax and other duties on the import. So the landing cost per litre was Tk 98.88 [US$ 1.43 ]. Then Bangladesh Rifles purchased the imported edible oil from the local importers [it was not directly imported by BDR]. The importers levied Tk 4-4.50 profit per liter [minimum]. In this case, the BDR director general managed to sell the purchased oil only with a most minimum profit of TK. 0.50 per litre, or may be even less, while in the open market, retail price of soyabean oil was above Tk 120 per litre. So, the allegation of the renegade troops was not true at all. Commenting on this, one of the leading oil importers said, it was not possible for the ordinary troops of Bangladesh Rifles to know the import cost of the edible oil. “ There are thousands of stories like this that is circulating in blogs and other places. If we sincerely look at all this rumours, we will find out like the previous example most of them are sheer lies , not true and propaganda only. They are only rumoured to harm the interests of Bangladesh and create distance between the brilliant and patriotic army of Bangladesh. The army and the patriotic people of Bangladesh need to be vigilant against this people and watch out so that situations like the BDR mutiny never happens in this beloved country of ours. We can not lose to conspirators, but must shine above all.
