Dhaka, Bangladesh ? Bangladeshi border guards began surrendering Thursday after a 20-hour mutiny that saw guards turn weapons on senior officers and paralyze the capital over demands for better pay. Officials feared as many as 50 people could be dead.

Bangladesh’s Home Minister Shahara Khatun received about a dozen automatic rifles from surrendering mutineers at the Dhaka headquarters of Bangladesh Rifles — the official name of the paramilitary border guards. TV reports showed guards filing out of buildings in the compound and laying down arms, one by one.

“The guards have begun surrendering arms after we have offered amnesty to them,” Khatun told reporters while leaving the compound, adding that he believed the surrender would be complete later today.

The government sent several more ministers to the compound to oversee the surrender, and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina called an emergency meeting of her Cabinet to discuss the situation, her spokesman Abul Kalam Azad said.

The home minister also had overseen the earlier evacuation of about 50 women and children trapped in homes inside the compound since the revolt erupted early Wednesday. They were mostly family members of officers attacked during the mutiny.

The guards had stormed the headquarters Wednesday, opening fire on superior officers, and also seized a nearby shopping mall.

Army troops were called in to surround both complexes, and the guards agreed to surrender when the government said it would grant them amnesty and discuss their demands.

The standoff was the result of longtime frustrations over pay for the border guards that didn’t keep pace with that of the army’s — highlighted by rising food prices in the poor South Asian country.