Daisy Ahmed missed a heartbeat when she saw something wrapped in BDR uniform lying abandoned at the entrance to her house in Ganaktuli, a locality adjacent to the fifth gate of border guards' headquarters.
After the February 25-26 mutiny that degenerated into a bloodbath at their HQ, most of the riflemen reportedly fled through the gate 5.
It was 9:00 in the night the next day when everybody thought the wrapped thing was a rifle. But the police discovered a sub-machine gun (SMG) and also recovered 408-round bullets.
Till date the law-enforcement agencies could not confirm how many firearms were taken away from the headquarters or eventually fell to the hands of criminals, posing a threat to law and order.
Hazaribagh police and Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) recovered an SMG, a pistol, 630-round Chinese rifles' bullets, 470-round SMG bullets, three grenades including two Arges, a wireless set and 15 bullet-chargers abandoned in different areas until March 5.
Locals allege some youths took away some firearms and might have sold those by now. The suspicion and allegations of hiding some abandoned firearms and ammo were substantiated after Hazaribagh police held two people in the act of fleeing with arms after the mutiny.
The police say the recovered weapons are in their custody and will be handed to BDR once the paramilitary force gets back to normalcy.
"The reality is that many firearms have gone missing and the number cannot be confirmed yet regarding how many arms there were during the mutiny or how many have gone missing," Inspector General of Police (IGP) Nur Mohammad told The Daily Star.
"If we fail to recover the firearms, very normally those will land in the hand of criminals and the law and order would definitely witness a slide," Nur Mohammad added.
"I just left 250 rounds of bullets inside Sweepers' Colony. Give me a lungi and help me flee," a fleeing BDR man was quoted by Sagarika, a resident of Ganaktuli.
The BDR man, who introduced him as Masum at around 11:00pm on February 26, was injured in his knee and claimed to have suffered the wound when he jumped from a two-storey building to escape.
"At first the border guard fainted at the entrance to my house. When he recovered, he made the statement. Almost all the border guards who fled Pilkhana through this area had ammunition in their pockets. They changed dresses at places and left behind those with the ammo," she added.
The BDR men left arms and ammunition wherever they could while fleeing, especially near the places where they took shelter. Besides Ganaktuli, abandoned firearms were found in Birban Kasra, Moneshwar Road and Kilkhana in Hazaribagh.
Lalbagh police say they recovered only 26 bullets abandoned by the BDR men, while Kamrangirchar police did not make any such recovery.
"Covers of some grenades suggest somebody might have taken away the hand-bombs. Even now you can find grenade holders in drains and sewage" a sub-inspector involved in the recovery of weapons told The Daily Star.
As locals refused to give shelter to some of the fleeing BDR men, many of them took shelter at Madina Masjid in Ganaktuli and abandoned a grenade and 224 bullets on the mosque premises.