Sajek torture victims to hold press conference tomorrow

chtnews.com
News No. 77/2009, July 01, 2009
A group of torture victims from Sajek in Rangamati district is now in Dhaka to narrate their harrowing experience and to highlight the recent land grabbing in their area, says a press release.

They will be speaking at a press conference tomorrow at Reporters Unity, Dhaka. The press conference will start at 11am.

“Recently military repression and land grabbing incidents have increased in Sajek,” Amar Dhan Karbari, one of the eight victims who traveled to Dhaka for the press conference told chtnews.com.

“The army of the Baghaihat zone is using the murder of two Bengali people in early May to torture Jumma people and grab their lands.” he added. “It all appears that they want us to leave the area so that they can occupy our lands more easily.”

He said the Jumma villagers continued to live in fear of army and settler attacks.

Sajek is one of the flashpoints in Chittagong Hill Tracts. On 20 April last year a group of settlers, in collaboration with the members of the Bangladesh Army, attacked a number of Jumma villages and burned down 77 houses.

The incident provoked protests from national human rights organisations as well as progressive forces of the country, and on 8 August members of the International Chittagong Hill Tracts Commission, including Lord Avebury, visited the area.

However, after their visit, the settlers carried out further attacks on 9 and 19 August, killing Ladu Moni Chakma and wounding four other villagers.