Hill Voice, 25 April 2020, Rangamati: It has been alleged that military operations have been conducted again in the Rajdwip area of Rangamati district headquarters amid coronavirus disaster.
According to local sources, on 24 April 2020, at around 7:30 pm, a group of army numbering around 55-60 personnel from the Rangamati Army Zone dividing into five small groups conducted a search operation again in the Rajdwip area of Rangamati District Headquarters. Which caused widespread harassment, anxiety and resentment among the people of the area.
At that time, the army searched the house of Foreign Chakma (35) and several other houses in the vicinity and detained the pedestrians and interrogated them.
It is learnt that the army forced three Jumma youths named Protul Chakma (25), Rubel Chakma (24) and Pratimay Chakma (34) to walk around the area with them in the rain.
After about two hours of search and harassment, the army personnel left the scene.
Local alleged that although the military have been active in maintaining social distance, enforcing lockdowns and raising awareness across the country to prevent corona, however, they have mainly been conducting searching operations in Jumma villages by taking the advantage of the corona disaster in the Chittagong Hill Tracts.
Therefore, the Jumma people in the Chittagong Hill Tracts are living in fear of being infected with the coronavirus on the one hand during the ongoing global corona epidemic and for fear of being tortured by the army on the other hand.
This is the brutality of the military rule in the Chittagong Hill Tracts called ‘Operation Uttaran’ of 2001 introduced by the Awami League government which signed the CHT Accord, violating the provisions.
