The Parbatya Charrogram Janasamhati Samiti, a regional political party in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, on Thursday demanded a judicial inquiry into the incidents of sectarian attacks in Khagrachari and Rangamati in September 18—20.
The demand was made in the party’s report on the attacks, published on Thursday.
‘The sectarian attacks carried out by Bengali settlers killed four indigenous people and injured over one hundred others,’ the report said.
The report also said that over 100 houses and shops belonging to the hill people including the CHT Regional Council office were looted and burnt to ashes.
PCJSS said that the Bengalis attempted to attack Madhupur of Khagrachari town on September 18, 2024, following the death of Md Mamun, who was rumoured to be beaten to death by the national minority people in Khagrachari town on theft allegation.
On September 19, the Bengalis brought out a procession protesting at Mamun’s death and attacked the houses and businesses of the national minority people at the end of their programme at Dighinala.
The violence soon spread to Khagrachari town on the same day and in Rangamati the next day on September 20 as hundreds of hill youths protested at the attacks. The violence killed four national minority people in the two hill districts.
The PCJSS, in its report, alleged that more than 200 unknown students of an Anti-CHT Treaty group, the United People’s Democratic Front, joined the rally in Rangamati on September 20.
UPDF in a statement on Thursday however denied the allegations and said that it was an intentional and anti-people propaganda.
PCJSS said in its report that, during attacks in Banarupa and Kalindipur, a youth Anik Kumar Chakma was beaten to death by Bengalis while over one hundred hill people were wounded.
Bengali attackers vandalised and looted Buddhist temples, at least 24 houses, business establishments and shops of hill people and set them on fire, said the report.
PCJSS also protested at the statement of the Inter-Service Public Relations that had claimed PCJSS-backed Pahari Chhatra Parishad’s involvement in the violence in Rangamati and Khagrachari.
It said that the incidents of sectarian attacks were not new in CHT as 21 such attacks were carried out after the signing of the CHT Accord in 1997.
The motives of those attacks were to turn the non-Muslim inhabited Chittagong Hill Tracts into a Muslim-dominant region, to cripple the economy of the hill people, occupy their lands forcibly, to evict them from their ancestral lands and to create a sense of fear in the minds of hill people.
The PCJSS in the report also demanded proper compensation for the affected families, and appropriate initiatives to ensure exemplary punishment for those involved in the attacks.
A fresh sectarian violence erupted in Khagrachari on October 1 after beating a teacher of Khagrachari Government Technical School and College to death allegedly for raping a Class VII student of Tripura community. The violence left at least 12 people injured.
Local people alleged that the Bengalis on the day attacked the national minority people after the death, and vandalised and set fire to several houses and businesses of the hill people in various places in Kharachari town.
Fear and tension gripped the people over the repeated violence in Khagrachari, the ¶¶Òõ¾«Æ· correspondent in Khagrachari reported.
No buyer or seller from national minority communities was seen in the town’s weekly market on Thursday, the report said.
The Hill Students’ Movement Against Conflict and Discrimination on Thursday announced to boycott all the markets in the CHT region for an indefinite period from today.