The number of incidents of human rights violation in the Chittagong Hill Tracts鈥攃overing Rangamati, Khagrachhari and Bandarban districts鈥攕lightly decreased in the first half of 2025, with 103 incidents reported, compared with 107 incidents during the same period last year, according to a half-yearly report by Parbatya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samiti.
However, the report on the human rights situation in CHT, published on Tuesday, said that 15 of the 103 incidents involved violence against national minority women and girls in the region. Perpetrated by both state- and non-state actors, these incidents left 16 women victims of rights violations, compared with four such incidents with nine victims reported during the same period in 2024.
鈥楾he trend is noticeably getting high with the crimes upon the Jumma (national minorities living in CHT) women, such as, raping, killing after raping, attempting to rape, eve teasing and cheating by the Muslim Bengali settlers, Bengali people coming from outside, labourers, and other professional individuals,鈥� the report said.
No fundamental change has occurred to the state of human rights in the CHT region in the past 11 months since Professor Muhammad Yunus-led interim government assumed power, said the report.
As perpetrators of the 103 human rights violations affecting some 315 individuals belonging to the national minority communities, the report named security forces and law enforcement agencies deployed in the CHT, armed groups, communal and fundamentalist groups, Bengali settlers and land grabbers.聽聽
Of the 103 incidents, 48 were carried out by security forces and law enforcement agencies鈥攄own from 73 such incidents perpetrated by the same actors as recorded during the same period last year.
In the incidents of this year, 49 people were arrested and 30 children from the Mro ethnic community were reportedly converted to Islam.聽聽聽
Besides, at least 300 acres of land was seized this year by companies from outside the CHT, influential individuals and Bengali settlers鈥攃ompared with 1,806 acres illegally occupied during the same period last year by settlers, influential individuals and NGOs from outside the region.
Mentioning that the two-thirds of the sections in the CHT accord signed on December 2, 1997 are yet to be implemented, the report said adding that although the interim government reconstituted the three Hill District Councils, appointed the chairman of CHT Development Board and reconstituted the CHT Accord Implementation and Monitoring Committee, no sincere effort was undertaken to address the unimplemented issues of the accord.聽
The CHT Accord Implementation and Monitoring Committee was though reorganised on January 12, 2025, but it had held no session till end of June, causing the situation of human rights in the region to escalate every day, the report said.
It said that the infiltration of Myanmar nationals of Rohingya community was going on in various areas of Bandarban district, in various ways and means.
The CHT affairs adviser Supradip Chakma could not be reached over phone for comment on the report.
