Minister Santana Chakma writes to prime minister seeking intervention to save lives of minorities in Bangladesh
By Our Correspondent
Agartala, September 21, 2024
The minister for industry , jail and OBC welfare Santana Chakma has addressed a letter to the prime minister Narendra Modi seeking his urgent intervention to curb the prevailing anarchy under the anti-minority interim government of Bangladesh as well as to save the lives of minorities. In her letter Santana has said that ever since the interim government assumed power in Bangladesh following the forced ouster of prime minister Sheikh Hasina on August 5 the lives and properties of all minorities in that country have become completely unsafe.
She cited the killing of three tribals identified as Dhananjay Chakma, Rubel Tripura and Junan Chakma by a riotous Muslim mob in Khagracherri town and nearby Dighinala on September 29 with the police and security forces abetting the ghastly crime by looking away. Besides, another tribal was killed yesterday by the Muslim resettlers in Rangamati district town. At least twenty persons were injured in the attacks launched by the Muslim resettlers. She also cited how the tribals in the three districts of the Chittagong hill-tracts (CHT) had been reduced to a minority from being 97.5% of the population in 1947 through sponsored resettlement of the Muslims from the plainland by successive regimes of Bangladesh. The tribals are also being deprived of basic human right like right to life by successive governments in Bangladesh. Santana said that unless the government of India intervene in the issue the tribals and other minorities of Bangladesh will either die or become stateless in no time.
Meanwhile, three advisors of the incumbent interim government of Bangladesh, Jahangir Alam Chowdhury (home), Supradip Chakma (CHT affairs) and AF Hassan Arif (local government and rural development) today held a meeting with the senior officials and representatives of ethnic minorities over the riotous situation and clashes involving ethnic minorities and Muslim resettlers in the Rangamati Cantonment quarter. They called for restoration of peace and normalcy and punishment for the trouble makers but the representatives of ethnic minorities expressed reservation over the role of the police and security forces . The advisors at least verbally tried to assure them of efforts to make the administration fair and just. Sources from across the border said that the entire Rangamati and Khagracherri districts have been brought under prohibitory orders under Section 144 and movement of vehicles have remained stalled since Thursday also following a strike call by ethnic minority organizations. There is an uneasy lull in the entire CHT areas.
Sources said that the latest trouble had stemmed from the lynching of a Muslim motor bike lifter Mamun Mia in Khagaracherri town on September 18 after he had been caught in the act . But nobody tried to verify who actually had lynched the bike lifter and went on a blind rampage. “Tension always simmers in CHT because of the inherently aggressive and expansionist behaviour of the resettled believers and their avarice for money and women, as everywhere else having their presence” sources added.