It was around 4pm on June 14, 2014, when a team of around 200 BGB soldiers (Border Guard Bangladesh) attacked some women planting a banana tree on their own land in Babuchora, Dighinala upazila, Khagracahri district. BGB men fired rubber bullets and tear gas and charged batons on them, evicting 84 people from 21 families from their own homes.
This episode was narrated yesterday by 16 year-old Apshari Chakma, a victim of the incident, at a press conference arranged by eight organisations including Pahari Chhatra Parishad, Hill Women’s Federation and Sajek Land Rights Protection Committee at the National Press Club in the capital.
“Around 18 people were injured and BGB filed false cases against 150 indigenous people with Dighinala police station,” Apshari said.
Apshari and her mother were among the accused in the cases. They were detained by police while being treated at Khagrachari District Hospital on June 17. Apshari was held for 12 days at a juvenile correctional centre. She was later released on bail.
She said BGB 51 battalion members were forcibly taking over 29.81 acres of land in order to build a head office for the force. Eighty-four people, 20 of them children, took shelter in two rooms of Babuchora High School. The children have stopped going to school out of fear. Many were sick due to the poor living conditions, she said.
“What fault have we committed? Why are we being evicted from our own land?” asked Pragyan Jyoti Chakma, a member of Dighinala Land Protection Committee.
“Our houses, cattle and even clothes were seized by the BGB. They are barring us from entering our own homes. Our income depends on our resources like cattle and poultry. We’ve been made into beggars,” he said.
In addition to occupying 21 families’ homesteads, the BGB also occupied the sites of a now-defunct government primary school and a Buddhist temple. Around 105 students used to study at the Number 2 Baghaichari Government Primary School, but it is no longer in operation.
Members of the 21 evicted families came to the capital to publicise their plight. They demanded that their land is returned to them, that false cases against them are dropped, that corrupt BGB and police personnel are punished, that detainees held under the false cases are released, that victims of the eviction are compensated for their financial and psychological distress, and that officers of the state no longer victimise indigenous people.
