The motorcade came under attack near local DGFI office
Four officials of International Chittagong Hill Tracts Commission (CHTC) and
a police officer received injuries when their motorcade came under attack,
allegedly by Bangalee settlers, in Rangamati yesterday.
The members of CHTC alleged that activists of Bangalee Somo Odhikar Andolon
and its like-minded organisations might have been behind attack on their
motorcade, which was under police protection, in Rangamati town.
The attack was launched around 2pm in Omda Miah Hill area of the town. The
injured were CHTC member Dr Iftekharuzzaman, also executive director of the
Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB), Research Official Ilira Dewan, car
driver Nur Hossain and Sadar Police Station OC Monu Sohel Imtiaz.
Three rounds of bullets were fired in the air while the attackers also
hurled brick chips on the microbus carrying the CHTC members, Abul Kalam Azad,
the additional police superintendent of Rangamati, said.
“We are yet to arrest anyone. We are not sure who were involved in the
attack. We will follow legal procedures once we gather all the information,” he
added.
Under police escort, a car carrying the commission members left Rangamati
town around 4:30pm.
Sultana Kamal, co-chairman of the CHTC, later at a press conference in
Chittagong said six organisations of the CHT, which had been defying the
conditions of the 1997 Peace Accord from the very beginning, might have
launched the attack.
Commission members including lawyer Sara Hossain, rights activist Khushi
Kabir and Swapan Adnan were also travelling with the team.
Members of the commission were carrying out their seventh mission in the
three CHT districts scheduled for July 2-8. As part of the mission, they
visited different places including Babuchhara, Todekmara and Dui Tila of
Rangamati and Khagrachhari. They also spoke to various groups and members of
the local administration.
However, leaders of Bangalee Somo Odhikar Parishad and three other settler
Bangalee-led groups earlier protested the CHT commission’s visit alleging that
it would damage peace and tranquillity in the area. They labelled the
commission as a controversial organisation and its members as brokers.
They also urged the government to ban it in the CHT.
Two of the four organisations on July 3 even announced a four-day blockade
in Bandarban from yesterday claiming that the commission was trying to create
divisions among the Bangalees and the indigenous people of the hills. The
blockade was withdrawn yesterday as the team cancelled its tour to Bandarban.
Ripon, a Bangalee youth who witnesses the incident, said: “The attackers set
fire to a tire just beside the house of additional SP of Rangamati Sadar
Circle. The place is around 60 yards away from a BGB camp. Once the motorcade
reached the area, they started hurling bricks.
“Around 150-200 people were in the group. All of them were Bangalee but they
are not inhabitants of the area. They were chanting slogans mostly against
Sultana Kamal and in favour of Somo Odhikar organisations.”
Sultana Kamal said the seven-member team went to Bandarban on July 2 to see
progress of the execution of the Peace Accord. The visit was aimed at finding
out whether the CHT people had been getting benefits of the accord and the
barriers behind its full implementation, she said.
“We sat with different organisations of the CHT areas including Parbatya
Chattagram Jana Samhati Samity (PCJSS) and United People’s Democratic Front
(UPDF) in Bandarban. We had a scheduled meeting with Bangalee Somo Odhikar
Parishad in Rangamati today [yesterday]. When we were staying in Parjatan Motel
this morning [yesterday], we were trying to communicate with its leaders.
However, they refused to sit with us.
“A number of local people, inspired by its local leader Nurjahan, started
gathering people around our hotel and hurled abuse at us,” Sultana said adding
that they sought help from the law enforcement agencies as the crowd, at one
stage, became threat for them.
She said they finally decided to leave Rangamati as the attempts for
discussion had gone into vain.
“We faced the attack when our motorcade, under police protection, reached in
front of the local DGFI office. The attackers from behind the DGFI office
started hurling stones at our vehicles. They also shot two rounds of bullets,”
said Sultana, also a former caretaker government adviser.
“The injured were taken to Combined Military Hospital in Chittagong
Cantonment where we had a scheduled meeting with the GOC of the cantonment. The
meeting was postponed due to the incident,” she added.
When contacted, Central Coordinator of Parbatya Chattagram Somo Odhikar
Andolon Moniruzzaman Monir declined to comment whether his party members were
involved in the attack or not.
“I believe aggrieved Bangalee people did this,” he told the Dhaka Tribune.
Bangalee Somo Odhikar Parishad is a faction operating under the Parbatya
Chattagram Somo Odhikar Andolon.
The other organisations supporting the Andolon are Parbatya Bangalee Chhatra
Parishad (PBCP), Parbatya Nagorik Parishad (PNP), Parbatya Dalopati Parishad
(PDP) and Parbatya Chhatra Oikya Parishad (PCAP).
The CHT commission officials said they had contacted the leaders of Bangalee
Somo Odhikar Parishad to have an appointment so that the commission could take
their opinion on the CHT issues.
Asked about it, Monir said: “The Rangamati district administration contacted
us over phone and asked us to prepare a group of representatives to sit with
the commission officials. We rejected their invitation since we did not get any
formal invitation from the commission in this regard.”
At one point, he said: “Why should we meet them? They brought with them
Ilira Dewan who was a member of the Hill Women’s Federation for a long time. We
told them [the commission] not to come to the CHT.”
Ilira was injured critically in the
attack.
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Courtesy: Dhaka Tribune, July 06, 2014
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