Khagrachhari BGB site: 10 hurt in clash over eviction

At least six indigenous people and four members of law enforcement agencies were injured yesterday in a clash when indigenous people brought out a procession in protest at the setting up of BGB battalion offices in Babuchhara of Dighinala.

Indigenous people have demanded over the past few months that the government do not set up the offices in the area, evicting 21 indigenous families from their ancestral land. 

Witnesses said the clash erupted when a peaceful procession brought out by Dighinala Bhumi Rakhha Committee was barricaded by joint forces comprising army, police and ansar personnel.

As indigenous people threw brickbats at the joint forces to remove the barricade, police opened blank fire and started charging batons on them.

“We brought out a peaceful procession and were heading towards Karbari hill to hold a rally there. But law enforcers put a barricade, opened blank fire and charged batons on us,” Samar Bikash Chakma, a member of the committee, told The Daily Star yesterday evening.

Police arrested 12 indigenous people in this connection in separate raids in the area as of filing this report yesterday evening. Additional police and army forces were also deployed in the area.

Protesting the incident, Dighinala Bhumi Rakhha Committee called a dawn-to-dusk blockade in the upazila for today.

At least one thousand aggrieved indigenous people joined the procession. 

Superintendent of Police Skeikh Mohammad Mizanur Rahman, however, said a few hundred people under the banner of Dighinala Bhumi Rakhha Committee gathered at Babuchhara and attempted to attack BGB 51 battalion in the name of a procession.  

They also hurled brickbats and stones at on-duty security personnel and attacked them with wooden sticks and lethal weapons that injured people from both sides, the SP said.

To disperse the protesters police opened more than 10 rounds of blank fire, he added.

The SP also said Dighinala UNO Fazlul Jahid Pavel and Executive Magistrate Mizanur Rahman were there on duty to make sure no untoward incident took place.