DHAKA, Bangladesh — Bangladesh’s military said 72 officers were still missing Saturday after a two-day mutiny by border guards in which at least 76 people died. The government pledged a full investigation as it moved to restore confidence and reassert control.
Firefighters were searching shallow graves and sewers at the border guards’ headquarters in the capital, Dhaka, where mutineers dumped the bodies of senior officers.
Workers also scoured nearby areas, including a pond, in an intense search for more victims.
Among the dead was Maj. Gen. Shakil Ahmed, commander of the Bangladesh Rifles border force, and a woman who authorities think was his wife.
Army spokesman Brig. Gen. Mahmud Hossain said at least 33 officers survived the carnage but 72 were still unaccounted for.
The insurrection apparently erupted over the guards’ long-standing complaints that their pay hasn’t kept pace with that of soldiers in the army — anger aggravated by the rise in food prices that has accompanied the global economic crisis.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who took office in January, sought to act decisively and quash questions about stability in the poor South Asian nation during the first major challenge her administration has faced. Hasina ended the revolt in two days, earning high marks for preventing further bloodshed, by persuading the guards to surrender Thursday with promises of amnesty coupled with threats of military force.
However, Hasina said Friday that there would be no amnesty for any killers.
Journalists on Saturday were allowed inside the border guards’ compound. The officers’ quarters and offices were ransacked and looted, and the hulks of burned cars sat outside.
Blood stained the floor of the commander’s home, which was littered with broken furniture. The bodies of an elderly couple, identified as a retired army officer and his wife who were houseguests, were found at the residence, investigators said.
