Chakma Association Protest Demonstration At Azad Maidan, Mumbai.

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Mumbai, 27th of September, 2024 : The Chakma Association Maharastra (CAM), Bhikkhu sangha, Mumbai, and The Buddhist society of India held a demonstration on 27.09.2024 at Azad Maidan, Mumbai, in protest against the barbaric attack on the Chakmas and other Indigenous Tribal Communities belonging to minority Buddhist, and Hindu religions. They were protesting against the organized communal attacks on the minorities on the 19th and 20th September 2024 at Khagrachari and Rangamati towns of Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh, where nine people from the Indigenous tribal peoples were killed brutally.

It is alleged that on 19th September 2024, one,named Mr. Md. Mamun was killed by a mob of Bengali Muslim Settlers while stealing a motorbike. His death was however used as a pretext to launch a barbaric attack on the Indigenous peoples in Khagrachari town, backed by the Army. Thousands of Muslim settlers went on the rampage, torching over 100 houses and shops and killing four Indigenous tribal peoples. Thousands of Indigenous tribal peoples fled into the forests to save their lives including infants, children, and women. Mosques loudspeakers were used to gather a mob to attack the Indigenous tribal peoples.

On 20th September 2024, the Indigenous youths in protest against the attack by illegal Bengali Muslim Settlers organized a peaceful procession in Rangamati town. However, they were again attacked by stone-throwing illegal Muslim settlers. The mosques’ loudspeakers were used to falsely announce that the Indigenous Tribal Peoples were coming to attack the mosques, inciting panic and urging people to resist. In the attack by the Muslim settlers, two Indigenous youths were killed in Rangamati, with numerous others injured. Several homes and businesses belonging to the Indigenous Tribal Peoples have been set on fire. In two days, a total of nine Indigenous people were killed.

The recent attacks appear to be in retaliation to a peaceful procession “March for Identity”, organized by the Indigenous Hill Tribe Students on 18th September 2024 wherein 40,000 indigenous people had participated demanding constitutional recognition of their rights and identities and Implementation of the CHT Peace Accord of 1997.

The plights of the Chakma Community and other Indigenous tribal peoples of the Chittagong Hill Tracts are rooted back to India’s partition in 1947. It is pertinent to mention that the non-Muslim minorities like Hindu, Buddhist, and other Indigenous tribes of CHT were the worst victims of the partition. Despite the 98.5% non-Muslim population in CHT, the region was unjustly awarded to East Pakistan (Now Bangladesh). Since then successive governments have continued to impose systematic and repressive policies on minorities. The implanting of five Lakh illegal Muslim settlers between 1979 and 1983 during the regime of President Zia Ur Rahman drastically changed the demographic landscape of region. The Indigenous tribal communities who were once majority in the CHT were diminished to marginalized minorities in their ancestral land. The Chittagong Hill Tracts region have a long history of human rights abuses and the recent granting of magisterial powers to the army has further aggravated the situation.

The Chakma Association Maharastra strongly condemns the Caretaker Government of Bangladesh led by Dr. Mohammad Yunus for its failure to take appropriate action on time against the perpetrators of violence against the minority Chakma Buddhist Community and other ethnic tribal communities in CHT. The Chakma Association Maharastra submitted a memorandum to theCaretaker Government of Bangladesh through theDeputy High Commissioner of the Bangladesh, Mumbai, demanding justice and monetary commission and setting up of an Enquiry Commission to book the perpetrators. The Association has also submitted a memorandum to Shri Narendra Modi Ji, Prime Minister of India calling upon his immediate intervention and ensure that justice is provided to the victims and displaced peoples are rehabilitated with monetary compensation.