Photographs purporting to depict the moments before the massacre at BDR Headquarters on February 25th have surfaced on Facebook and a number of Bengali blogs.
It is unclear who leaked these photographs and why they were leaked. In one of the photos, two more cameramen and a video camera are visible. It would appear that there are more pictures and possibly a video of the event. The text narrative released with the photos claims (rather incredibly) that two assassins came out from behind the curtains with sub-machine guns (not shown in the photos), failed to fire, and then fainted. Then, according to this narrative, as army officers tended to the fainted assassins other assassins came in through the doors from outside the hall and the killings began.
The photos raise more questions than they answer.
I have reposted the set of 10 photographs on Flickr. Click here to view the photos.
what a bizarre story..what is your take on this really?
Ingrid
This story is getting very bizarre indeed. First there was the leaked audio of the army’s meeting with the prime minister, now this. Clearly not all the photos have been leaked, but only a few to build a narrative.
There are multiple investigations going on in Bangladesh of the massacre. Meanwhile, at least 4 BDR soldiers have mysteriously died of “heart attacks” in the last couple of weeks while in custody. Now these photos are leaked. Investigators in BD need to probably find out who and how these photos were leaked. These developments are not encouraging.
hmmm, this seems incredulous. it seemed improbable that there were not photos taken given that every 3rd phone seems to be a 3MP+ camera phone here in dhaka. between ministers who cannot shut up and leaked dribs and drabs of info, am wondering what next!
i shudder to think what sort of photos come out next…
do you know where these originated from, i.e. track back from who or where you saw these first going back?
I linked to the Facebook album and the blog post where I first saw them. Now it looks like the guy who posted on Facebook has hidden the pictures and his profile (maybe deleted his account, not sure). I got an email from a friend pointing me to the Facebook album. Apparently these photos are floating around on a number of websites.
I’m very curious to know how these folks got hold of these pictures. It is worth knowing who is leaking these photos and why. Clearly they have left some photos out and only selectively released photos to support a particular narrative.
The photos look like they were taken by a SLR and not a cell phone. There is at least one other guy with an SLR visible in a photo taking pictures and a video camera. They both look like they are documenting the event. Its pretty clear there is both video and pictures of this event.
I’m with you. I’m not sure what comes next.
hmm, yes, there is one guy, on extreme left, with what looks like a dslr, the one in the middle has a small p&S, all looking like they were officially photographing the event.
the dhaka university video you posted some weeks ago of the 71 massacre puts to mind that there has to be a number, if not many, of people with similar videos from the bdr compound. recently had some guys paint our flat, one of the young kids, not more than 17, had a nokia with video capturing capability. i see these fairly higher end camera phones all over the place, even in the hands of teenage school kids. there is likely quiet a few stills and videos floating about.
as for intent, in a digital age, it is, will be, ought to be, very easy for experts to see exif data buried in digital images and videos to track what camera (as in specific body and even lens) as well as eTrack of where images and videos originate from. many people fail to realise in the digital age, there is always a trail of breadcrumbs, if one knows where or how to look.
Mash, you are wrong.
The album is still available in Facebook and the link is and if you have an account you should be able to access it.
What needs to be understood is that the concept of “Citizens Intelligence” is evolving on Facebook and since we do a lot of monitoring, we have found more info on Facebook then any other website. We are told there is yet a lot of Video Clips and pictures together with a lot more gruesome images captured on camera by residents in and around the BDR precincts, and looks like these will be revealed over time. No one seems to be in quite a hurry to spill all the beans at one for reasons we do not know – but this time around cause things transpired in the ‘public eye’ (unlike Coups, Mutiny’s etc which happened inside the Cantonments) – the citizens at large will have more evidence than any Intell agency or the Government.
Stay tuned.
Thank you for the link. The link you provided has more pictures than the 10 photos I saw. The Facebook album link I was forwarded and posted above has however been removed. I am not sure why.
I am expecting (dreading) more video and photos will come out.
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/photo_search.php?oid=53653267053&view=all
We may not look for the person who has taken or who has pasted the pics in the FB. Any such step will prevent the other armature photographers who might have lots of chilling shots in their stocks.
As a common people we will not have access to the findings of the investigation team (National/Military/CID) . These anonymous pictures will provide the fact.
We must encourage such effort
DJ
I’m not usually a conspiracy nut but when captured suspects are dying of “heart attacks” it just reeks of a cover-up. It’s clearly still an extremely dangerous and potentially volatile environment in Bangladesh (and esp. Dhaka) so I can’t help but wonder if the people who are leaking photos and the audio-recording and whatnot are possibly risking their lives…may explain why that guy deleted his Facebook account.
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Thank you for this article I am happy to part with you, I think that everything will change, and certainly I see things from the other side,I’m from Iraq … .. only for welcome …
Camera phones are in great demand these days, i own at least two of them:”-
camera phones are very convenient coz they can take picture and calls at the same time.`-
camera phones are very popular coz everyon likes to take pictures”‘;
Hi, just doing some research for my Curious George site. Amazing the amount of information on the web. Looking for something else, but nice site. Have a great day.
well, camera phones always come in handy whenever there are important events and parties “