IT was appalling to witness the fast swinging of the 'sentiment pendulum' during the course of the BDR mutiny. When the first news of the mutiny broke, the sentiment pendulum decisively swung towards the mutineers, partly owing to their socio-economic background but mainly due to the stories of deprivation they managed to deliver to the public.

We saw people gathering around the BDR gates shouting solidarity, media focusing on the deprivation of soldiers, and some pundits even going as far as portraying it a 'class revolt."

After the mass graveyards were dis-covered, however, the sentiment pendu-lum swung hard in the opposite direction People were shocked with the brutality of the massacre. Media switched from "mutiny" to "carnage" in referring to the incident. Around the world people took part in spontaneous candle light vigils.

The initial pro-BDR public reaction dearly hurt the feelings of friends and family members of the army officers — this sentiment was evident in the blog posts of cadets and army officers. The subsequent anti-BDR momentum should have created an equal anxiety for . the family members of the innocent BDR soldiers who are still waiting for the fate of their sons and brothers.

Disturbing, but not surprising, was the political blame game that took place subsequent to the massacre. While the raw emotional outbursts of the victims were received with sympathy, the widespread conspiracy theories added spice to everyday conversation.

But most importantly, it was this swinging of sentiments that should remind us the consequences of extreme emotions, awkwardness of ignorant preconceptions, and fallacy of prejudiced belief.

The investigation is ongoing, and it is best to leave it to the proper authorities to find the answers to all the unanswered questions. Instead, this article uses the actual eyewitness accounts of the surviving army officers to form a detailed timeline of events.

Using this timeline, we can explore a range of questions without emotional prejudice. Specifically, we can address the viability of a military solution to avoid the atrocities,

The eyewitness accounts of the event that happened inside BDR HQ are collated from the interviews publicly avail- able in the audio and video format. Secondary sources such as the printed reports were used mainly to narrate the events that happened outside the BDR HQ in parallel. The narratives of the surviving officers could easily be placed in a rough timeline. Given the horrific nature of the events and trauma, the inconsistencies that are in the details are quite reasonable. Preferences were given to available hard facts (e.g. images) and comparable narratives of senior officials.

For the full version of this article please read this month's Forum, available free with The Daily Star on Monday, April 6.

Syeed Ahamed is a public policy analyst and can be reached at ahamed.saeed@gmail.com