Students for Sovereignty, a student organisation of Dhaka University, on Friday protested at spreading sectarian violence in the Chittagong Hill Tracts.
At a rally on the university campus, the organisation claimed that the killing of school teacher Abul Hasnat Mohammad Sohel Rana was a conspiracy to spread sectarian violence in the CHT and demanded punishment for those involved.
Clashes between Bengali people and national minority communities in Khagrachari erupted recently after Khagrachari Government Technical School and College teacher Sohel Rana was beaten to death on October 1 for allegedly raping a Class VII student of the Tripura community.
Earlier, a case was filed with the Khagrachari police station against Sohel Rana for allegedly attempting to rape a Class X student in February 2021 and he was in jail on the charges of rape attempts.
Students for Sovereignty convener Muhammad Ziaul Haque placed the organisation鈥檚 seven-point demand including bringing involved persons in the killing to book and listing armed organisations in the CHT as 鈥榯errorist鈥� organisations, making a gazette for calling national minority people 鈥榓divasi鈥� and 鈥榡humiya鈥� and Bengali people living in the CHT 鈥榮ettler鈥� as sedition, removing quotas for national minority communities from educational institutions and jobs.
The demands also included increasing army camps to control unrest in the CHT, abolishing the Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord 1997 and the Chittagong Hill-tracts Regulation 1900, taking steps not to make Bangladesh a proxy state of India, America and China and inclusion of a representative from Students for Sovereignty in the interim government鈥檚 constitution reform committee.
Hill Human Rights activist Minhaj Tauki claimed that rape allegations were used as a 鈥榯rump card鈥� against the Bengali teacher to drive away them from the areas inhabited by the national minority people.