News No. 07/2018: Thursday,
January 18, 2018,
Choton Kanti
Tonchongya, chief organizer of UPDF Bandarban District unit, was arrested from
his home at Balaghata in Bandarban district town on Tuesday night and was
released fourteen hours later at 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday.
Speaking to chtnews.com after
his release, Choton said, ‘A group of army men led by a Captain came to our
house at midnight and took me away to Bandarban zone headquarters.’
He said the soldiers
had also taken documents from his party office and added that he was tortured
while in custody.
‘The zone commander
Lt. Col. Moshiur Rahman appeared gentle, but a soldier asked me why I don’t
call myself Bengali’ he said.
‘When I said I am not
Bengali, I am Tonchongya and my mother tongue is Tonchongya, he became furious
and beat me.’
Choton said
intelligence personnel had been warning him not to organize commemorative
meetings and candle- lighting events in Bandarban for Mitun Chakma, who was
killed by government-backed vigilantes in Khagrachari on 3 January.
A commemorative
meeting and a candle-lighting event was scheduled to be held yesterday, but it
could not be held because of his arrest.
Choton Kanti Chakma,
who contested the ninth and tenth parliamentary elections from Bandarban constituency,
had his first brush with arrest on 11 May 2012.
He had to spend one
night in Bandarban police station on a false charge at the time.
An in 2010 (18
February), he was subjected to an assassination attempt.
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