Hill Voice, 17 July 2025, Special Correspondent: Today (17 July) at around 10:30 AM, another innocent Bawm citizen from Bandarban reportedly died of a stroke while in custody at Chittagong Central Jail.
The deceased was identified as Vanlal Rual Bawm (35), son of Rouphir Bawm, a resident of Ronin Para village in Bandarban. So far, three innocent Bawm villagers, falsely accused and detained without trial, have died in prison.
Earlier, on 15 May 2025, another Bawm detainee named Laltleng Kim Bawm (30) died in Chittagong Central Jail due to a lack of proper medical treatment. Subsequently, another Bawm individual, Sangmoy Bawm (55), who had also been seriously ill, passed away on 1 June 2025, just one day after being granted bail. All three had been held for over a year without trial, and despite the deterioration of their health, they were denied appropriate medical care.
It is worth mentioning that Vanlal Rual Bawm was arrested by the army in 2023 on false charge of being a member of the KNF, also known as the Bawm Party—a group once created by the military and later known for sheltering and training terrorist and Islamist militant organizations.
Following a bank robbery carried out by Kuki-Chin National Front (KNF) terrorists on 2 April 2024, a joint anti-KNF operation led by the Bangladesh Army began on 8 April 2024. During the operation, nearly 150 members of the Bawm community—including men, women, and children—were arrested. Reports indicate that, apart from a few actual KNF members, the majority of those detained were innocent villagers.
