Bangladesh mutiny:

Three dead

PM offers general amnesty:

Bangladesh border guards launched an armed mutiny on Wednesday, taking officers hostage and sparking a fierce gunbattle in the capital that left at least three people dead and 30 wounded.

Thousand of police and the regular Army were called in to surround the headquarters of the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), the South Asian nation's paramilitary border security force who took up arms against their superiors over low pay.

Following hours of gunfire and panic in the city, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina met with renegade troops at her home and offered a general amnesty, her spokesman Nakibuddin Ahmed told AFP. Jahangir Kabir Nanak, Deputy Minister for Local Government, told reporters the mutineers had agreed to free family members of the officers, who were taken hostage since the morning.

Tauhid, an assistant director of BDR who led the mutineers in talks with Sheikh Hasina, said: "We have pledged to her that we will lay down arms and go back to barracks. She has agreed to meet our demands gradually."

At least three people were killed, including a BDR soldier and two bystanders, and 30 others wounded, medical officials said. AFP