Bangladesh hill tribals seek Indian support against “policy of extermination”
The Hindu
The Zo Reunification Organisation urges Prime Minister Narendra Modi to nudge his Bangladeshi counterpart to declare a ceasefire with an armed indigenous group in the Chittagong Hill Tracts
GUWAHATI
An organisation representing the Chin-Kuki-Mizo communities living in India, Bangladesh and Myanmar has sought the help of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in ending the “policy of extermination” of ethnic minorities inhabiting the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) of Bangladesh.
More than 300 people belonging to the Chin-Kuki-Mizo group have taken shelter in Mizoram’s Lawngtlai district since November 2022, following an alleged offensive by the Bangladesh army in collusion with the Arakan Army, a Rohingya Muslim extremist group.
A 13,000 sq. km hilly and forested area comprising Khagrachari, Rangamati and Bandarban districts of south-eastern Bangladesh, the CHT borders India’s Mizoram and Tripura States and the Chin and Rohingya-inhabited Rakhine States of Myanmar.
The constitutional and human rights of the indigenous Kuki-Chin tribes -- such as the Bawm, Pangkhua, Lushai, Khumi, Mru or Miria, and Khiang who have been living in the CHT for centuries -- are being violated with impunity under a policy of the Bangladesh army to exterminate them, the Zo Reunification Organisation (ZORO) said in a memorandum to the Prime Minister.
The pre-British CHT had self-governing chiefdoms and chieftaincies. The population was categorised either as the Khyoungtha, tribes who live along the river banks, or the Toungtha, tribes who live in the thick jungles of the hills, said ZORO president R. Sangkawia. The tribes remained beyond the realms of Hindu kings and Muslim nawabs, but the annexation of the CHT by the British in 1860 made them vulnerable to external pressures, the organisation said.
The British gave special constitutional status to the CHT to protect the identity, customs, culture, tradition and ancestral land of the tribes. The restrictive laws were, however, repealed by 1903 to let the dwellers of the plains infiltrate the areas of the highlanders.