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| Photo: Top left: Khagrachari Brigade Commander and later Director General of Ansar Abdul Motaleb Sajjad Mahmud (1st and 2nd); top right: Khagrachari Brigade Commander Md. Aman Hasan (currently transferred elsewhere). Bottom left to right: Current Guimara Brigade Commander Abul Kalam Mohammad Shamsuddin Rana, current Khagrachari Brigade Commander Hasan Mahmud, and Rangamati Brigade Commander Nazmul Haque. |
Commentary
Yesterday (17 November 2025), the International Crimes
Tribunal sentenced former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and former Home Minister
Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal to death for crimes against humanity committed during
the July people’s uprising. Responding to this historic verdict, Chief Adviser
Dr. Yunus said, “This verdict and punishment reaffirm a fundamental principle –
no matter how powerful one is, no one is above the law.” In a statement, he
commented that the verdict has brought at least a limited measure of justice to
the families affected by the July 2024 uprising.
In a civilized society, the rule is that if someone
commits a crime, they should be punished through due process, and the victims
should receive justice. But is this rule in force in the Chittagong Hill Tracts
(CHT)? Is the principle Dr. Yunus spoke of being applied in the hills? The
powerful people who constantly commit crimes and violate human rights in the
CHT face no punishment. Just as there was no precedent of their punishment in
the past, none exists today either.
Leaving aside the genocides and countless human rights
violations committed during the regimes of Zia, Ershad, Khaleda, and
Hasina—what about the communal attacks, massacres, and killings that took place
in the hills during the tenure of Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Yunus himself?
Even those crimes are not being tried or punished. The powerful here still
remain far above the reach of the law. On 28 September, soldiers of the Guimara
Brigade in Khagrachari indiscriminately fired and beat to death three Marma
youths. To this day, no one has been arrested for this murder. Not even a
single person has been charged in the police case. Those involved in this
attack and killing are highly powerful—so the law cannot touch them.
A year before the Guimara attack, on 19 September, the
army beat and shot dead three hill people in Dighinala and Khagrachari. The
next day, on 20 September, during a communal attack on hill people in Rangamati
town, settlers beat to death a college student named Anik Chakma. Over those
two days, extensive arson and looting took place in Dighinala and Rangamati.
These attacks and killings also remain unaddressed. Even the investigation
reports have not seen the light of day. The Yunus government has failed to
deliver even the slightest measure of justice to the affected hill people and
their suffering families.
It is a proven fact that in the CHT, even when the
powerful commit the gravest crimes against humanity—genocide, ethnic
cleansing—there is no justice. Here the law exists only in books, not in
practice. There is a court, but no justice. The powerful get away with horrific
crimes without any punishment because the region is under de facto military
rule.
A false narrative is propagated to justify oppression
of the hill people: that they want to secede from Bangladesh. But who has
actually isolated the CHT? Who has imposed restrictions on foreign citizens
traveling to the region, effectively cutting it off from the outside world? One
of the 11 directives issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs in 2015 states: “If
any local or foreign individual/organization wishes to meet or hold discussions
with tribal people in the hill region, the presence of the local administration
and the army/BGB must be ensured.” Through this directive, who is isolating the
hill people from the rest of the population of this country? Dr. Yunus’s
International Crimes Tribunal has sentenced former Home Minister Asaduzzaman
Khan Kamal to death, yet the Yunus government has retained those same 11
directives—unconstitutional, discriminatory, and deeply insulting to the hill
people—which were issued by him.
The hill people indeed demand autonomy—but within the
territory of Bangladesh and within the framework of the national constitution.
Autonomy is typically granted to one or more regions within a state. In many
countries, minority nationalities enjoy various degrees of autonomy. Looking
around the world, we see that the stronger a country’s democracy, the greater
the extent of autonomy enjoyed by its minority peoples. In other words, one of
the measures of democracy in a country is the scope of autonomy granted to
minorities. By this measure, the absence of autonomy in the CHT is evidence of
the lack of democracy in Bangladesh.
Democracy and justice go hand in hand. If one exists
in a country, the other does as well. Just because war criminals were tried and
executed during Hasina’s rule, or because Hasina herself received a death
sentence yesterday, does not mean everyone in this country receives equal
justice. In Bangladesh, the law is not applied equally to all. Justice is not
for everyone. Here, only those in power or with influence receive
justice—ordinary people do not, ethnic minorities do not, religious minorities
do not.
In this country, the law is nothing but a tool to
suppress opponents. For as long as you hold power, you can commit the vilest
crimes and still walk free. No matter how long the arm of the law is, it cannot
even touch a hair on your head. This situation has not changed even after the
uprising of 2024. And it is unlikely to change even after the new government is
formed through elections next February.
This mountain-high inequality in the application of
the law must end. That is precisely the spirit of the 2024 people’s uprising.
Therefore, if a former prime minister (i.e., a former powerful person) like
Sheikh Hasina can be tried and punished, why shouldn’t the Guimara Brigade
Commander Abul Kalam Shamsuddin Rana, or Abdul Mottaleb Sajjad Mahmud—the
founder of the vigilante group and a complicit in the 2018 Swayanirbhar
seven-murder case (whom the Yunus government appointed as Director General of
Bangladesh Ansar & VDP)—or Lt. Ferdous, who abducted Kalpana Chakma, also
be tried and punished? How long will the powerful remain above the law in the
hills? Even if Dr. Yunus cannot politically resolve the CHT crisis during his
time in office, he can at least bring the powerful here under the rule of law.
(18 November 2025)
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