Jumma woman tortured in Manikchari

chtnews.com News No. 16/2012, March 29, 2012 A Jumma woman was tortured yesterday during a search operation by the army in the village of South Sapchari under Manikchari Upazila in Khagrachari district. According to local sources, at 2:30pm a group of army personnel led by Major Sadat of Sindukchari zone in two army vehicles raided the village of South Sapchari and surrounded the house of Thoaichau Marma, 56. The soldiers searched the house but found nothing incriminating. They also interrogated his daughter, Machiu Marma, 25, about “terrorists” meaning members of the United Peoples’ Democratic Front (UPDF). “Do you know the terrorists? Where do they live? Do they often come to your village?” such were the questions the soldiers put to her. They also threatened her to subject her to “Banch Dholai”, a special method of torture in which a person’s body is pressed and rolled between two or more bamboo poles. When she said she did not know anything about “terrorists” an army men hit her on the forehead with a bamboo stick, wounding her seriously.