Attack on settlers in Panchari a hoax

chtnews.com
News No. 100/2009, August 8, 2009
The rumour of an attack on Bengali settlers by Jumma people in Panchari has turned out to be a hoax.

On Friday moring, 7 August, rumours spread that the Jumma people attacked a settler village in Shantila, destroyed their houses and cut away their trees.

This immediately set the Panchari administration into motion. Upazila chairman Sorbottam Chakma and UNO Md. Abdul Kader Sheikh rushed to the spot along with a huge contingent of police force.

They found over one hundred settlers and a few journalists gathered at Shantila.

The so-called Sama Odhikar leaders Habib Daktar, Md. Bahar Mian, Shaheen and Atikur Rahman brought a number of false allegations against the Jumma people.

However, after speaking with the people in the area, the UNO, the Upazila chairman and Shantila camp commander Md. Hamidul Islam confirmed that no such attacks had ever taken place.

After this, the UNO ordered the Sama Odhikar leaders to get away from his presence and warned them not to provoke communal troubles.

The Sama Odhikar Andolon, Bangali Chattra Parishad (Bengali Student’s Council) and other ultra-communal organisations of the settlers have stepped up their vicious communal propaganda campaign since the government announced on 29 July that it would pull out one brigade of Bangladesh Army soldiers from Chittagong Hill Tracts.

These communal outfits are patronized by the army and are used as a weapon to counter the democratic struggle of the Jumma people by fomenting communal tension between the settlers and the Jumma people.

On 15 July, an attempt was made to launch a communal attack on Modon Karbari Para in Panchari. Here the settlers uprooted a few young teak plants and cut down redundant plantains planted on lands they had grabbed from the Jumma people, and then lodged a complaint to the local administration that these were the work of the Jummas.

But the attempt failed when the local administration made a swift intervention. The UNO and the Upazila chairman immediately rushed to the area and ordered the settlers to clam down.

Another team of the local administration is scheduled to visit the area to conduct further investigation on the matter today.

Shantila and West Modon Karbari Para villages belong to the Jumma people, locals say. “These two villages, like all other cluster villages of the settlers, were once inhabited by the Jumma people” they claim.

According to them, in 1981 – 82, the settlers occupied these two villages after driving away the Jumma villagers with the help of the army.