Sectarian violence kills 3 in southeastern Bangladesh hills

Dhaka, Sep 28 (PTI)  At least three people were killed and dozens injured on Sunday as clashes flared up in parts of the southeastern Bangladesh hills between aboriginal tribesmen and the settler Bengali community despite intensified security over alleged gang rape of a tribal girl.

Police confirmed the deaths of three men without elaborating on their identities, while residents and witnesses said both feuding sides turned violent, setting ablaze each other’s businesses and households in Khagrachhari hill district, some 270 kilometres northeast of Dhaka on the motorway.

The clashes occurred following an alleged gang rape of an eighth-grade schoolgirl in Khagrachhari district on Tuesday, one of the three hill districts of Chittagong Hill Tracts bordering India and Myanmar.  The home ministry in Dhaka said 13 army personnel and three policemen were injured in the violence.

  The violence first erupted in Khagrachhari district headquarters, where the aboriginal people, mostly belonging to Chakma and Marma tribes on Saturday enforced a roadblock with burning tyres, tree trunks and bricks, prompting authorities to enforce movement restrictions and rallies.

  However, the three deaths were reported from the Guimara area, 36 kilometres south of Khagrachhari, as the violence spread beyond the district headquarters despite patrols by military and paramilitary Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) troops alongside police.

The girl was allegedly gang raped on her way from a private tuition and was reportedly found by her parents and neighbours at around midnight in an unconscious state in an isolated area in the town.

She was treated at a local hospital while police later arrested a Bengali teenager with military assistance. He is suspected to be one of the rapists and is now being interrogated on a six-day remand on a court order.

  The district administration on Saturday enforced Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) banning organised movements and rallies at Khagrachhari district headquarters and its suburban townships but the restrictions largely failed to quell the unrest.

 “Three people were killed in gunshots at Guimara. Their bodies have been kept at Khagrachhari Sadar Hospital,” police’s deputy inspector general Ahsan Habib told reporters.

A local journalist reached by PTI said doctors at the hospital just reconfirmed the receipt of the bodies.

  However, they refused to specify whether the dead were ethnic minority people or Bengalis.

“The authorities have enforced Section 144, but a curfew-like situation prevails at Khagrachhari town as people preferred to stay indoors fearing outbreak of escalating violence,” a senior journalist in the hill district, Jiten Barua told PTI.

  The home ministry statement issued on Sunday evening in Dhaka expressed regret over the casualties and pledged legal actions against those responsible following an “immediate investigation” adding “no criminals will be spared” and urged all to stay calm and remain patient.

  District administration has banned rallies and restricted organised movements.

  Muhammad Yunus’ interim government in October last year slapped a temporary ban on tourists in CHT amid sectarian tensions between local ethnic minority communities and Bengali settlers.

The CHT had experienced a two-decade insurgency until a peace deal was struck in 1997.

The region is the abode of over a dozen mostly Buddhist majority ethnic minority groups.

The 1997 peace agreement between the then regime of now ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina and Parbatya Chattogram Jana Sanghati Samity (PJJSS) had ended the insurgency over regional autonomy for the hill people.

But sporadic unrest continued mostly due to in-fights among different breakaway factions of tribal groups, including PCJSS and United Peoples Democratic Front (UPDF), a political party based in the CHT. PTI AR RD RD RD